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Belgium V Slovakia: Euro 2024 – Live

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70 min: Double substution for Slovakia De Bruyne is playing very deep, almost like David Beckham in his quarterback phase, which feels like a waste of his ability. Meanwhile, Slovakia bring on David Strelec and Tomas Suslov for Robert Bozenik and Lukas Haraslin. Both were excellent, especially Haraslin.

67 min De Bruyne whips a first-time cross/shot that is blocked on the edge of the area. Belgium are playing with a desperate intensity and look likely to equalise any minute now.

65 min “It strikes me that Lukaku is living an extended version of Andy Cole’s first couple of years at United,” says Patrick O’Brien. “His numbers show he’s obviously a good player but I wonder how such a good player and his country’s record scorer, can look so inept at times. Some of his misses are inexplicable. Add to that, when his luck goes, it really goes.”

Thank goodness the internet wasn’t around during Andy Cole’s rough spell. Even somebody with his extraordinary mental strength might have been broken.

Hancko clears off the line!62 min Doku’s dangerous cross is pushed away by the diving Dubravka. Bakayoko drives the rebound towards goal and Hancko – a member of Roy Keane’s Smell the Danger Club – clears heroically off the line.

Hancko stays down in the goal, and the referee eventually stops play. There are boos but replays show it was legitimate – Hancko was accidentally kneed in the face by Vavro after making the clearance.

Slovakia’s David Hancko blocks a shot from Belgium’s Johan Bakayoko. Photograph: Lee Smith/Reuters61 min Doku skips past Pekarik and drives a dangerous cross that is booted behind. The resulting corner leads to a half chance for Carrasco, whose volley is blocked. Then Slovakia break with a man over, only for Lobotka to underhit his pass, and then Lukaku volleys into the side netting from a tight angle. All that in the space of around 30 seconds.

60 min “I’ve never been sure where this ‘Belgium potential’ originated (Premier League players perhaps) but they never struck me as an impressive side,” says Billy Graboso. “There hasn’t been one tournament where I could say they were the best or missed an opportunity. Their half of the draw opened up kindly after finishing behind Italy at Euro 2016 but lost to Wales. For his country De Bruyne has never been the kind to take the game by the scruff of the neck, same with Hazard at his best. Ultimately they neither underachieved nor overachieved.”

That’s essentially how I feel. De Bruyne had his moments, particularly the goal against Brazil, but his body language sometimes screams ‘Look what I have to work with’.

59 min: Good save by Dubravka! Trossard runs onto a god flick from Lukaku and cracks a low shot from 20 yards. Dubravka gets down smartly to his left to push it away.

Belgium are still behind but they have at least woken up.

58 min: Belgium substitution Johan Bakayoko is for Orel Mangala, which means De Bruyne will deeper and Trossard will support Lukaku.

NO GOAL! Belgium 0-1 SlovakiaLukaku was fractionally offside. He must wonder what the hell the universe has against him.

Romelu Lukaku scores his 86th goal for Belgium. De Bruyne took a short corner to Trossard, who curled a lovely ball towards Onana at the far post. He headed it back across the six-yard box and Lukaku tapped into the empty net.

There’s a VAR check for offside though. It’s tight.

GOAL! Belgium 1-1 Slovakia (Lukaku 56)If at first you don’t succeed…

Romelu Lukaku of Belgium scores but it’s disallowed. Photograph: Harriet Lander/UEFA/Getty Images56 min Trossard feeds Lukaku, who makes enough room to rattle a shot that is pushed round the near post by Dubravka. Good effort and a good save.

53 min Belgium haven’t started the second half well, bar a couple of runs from Doku, and they’re starting to sulk a bit. It’s now almost five hours since their last goal at a major tournament.

52 min Vavro walks forward from defence and hits a fierce shot from about 35 yards. Casteels watches it bounce wide but it’s another good effort from a team who are playing with so much confidence.

51 min “Lukaku’s gotta come off,” writes Eagle Brosi. “I think Belgium would be more dangerous with Bakayoko and Trossard switching from centre-forward to winger and back and forth, like they do at the club level. It’s too bad because Lukaku has the ability to play well but I think he’s lost his team’s confidence.”

50 min Doku already looks more dangerous on the left, where he is running at the 37-year-old Pekarik.

49 min “It seems like the last shout for this Golden Generation Belgian team is turning into a whimper,” writes Peadar de Burca. “I have a vague memory of a great Joy of Six from over a decade ago that began (paraphrasing here as I try to feed three hungry daughters) ‘Some of football’s more interesting stories are about those who didn’t make it…’ Is there a story there Rob, about the glorious failure of Belgium to win a tournament?”

It might just be me but I’ve never found them as interesting as, say, Denmark in the mid-1980s or even Romania in 1994. I adore De Bruyne, I loved Hazard, but overall their team has always left me slightly cold. That said, I missed their quarter-final and semi-final in 2018, and that’s an essential part of the story. Maybe I’d think about them differently had I watched those matches, especially the Brazil win.

47 min Haraslin curls a few yards wide of the far post from the edge of the area. A nice effort, though it wasn’t as close as it first looked.

47 min “Re, the point made earlier about playing from the back: we only notice it when it goes wrong,” says Andy Flintoff. “Most of the time teams are sufficiently technically skilled that it’s not an issue, and the opposition is successfully drawn out to create space which can be worked through and round.”

Do you not think every team in the world that plays out from the back will occasionally concede the type of goal that never befell John Beck’s Cambridge? I’m not saying they should change – the risk/ reward balance is clearly worth it for the best teams – but I also don’t agree that it’s intrinsically more effective. It has to be more nuanced than that or we’re all doomed.

46 min Belgium begin the second half. It looks like Doku and Trossard have swapped wings.

“The final word about playing out from the back,” begins J.R. in Illinois, “has just come in from our halftime pundit Alexi Lalas with the forceful and unequivocal pronouncement ‘Playing out from the back is a disease in the modern game!’ So that’s that I guess. What should we talk about now?”

Well frankly I think knocking it long is in danger of becoming a disease in the modern game.

“Hello Rob,” says Krishnamoorth V. “A useful hack: keep ‘Chance for Lukaku’ in Ctrl+C.”

The poor guy will probably finish his career with over a hundred goals for his country. But it won’t be enough.

Half-time reading

What else did we expect from a man whose surname is an anagram of I, Huge?

Half time: Belgium 0-1 SlovakiaAll the fun of the fair in Frankfurt, where a very impressive Slovakia lead through Ivan Schranz’s smart volley. It stemmed from a mistake by Jeremy Doku, whose performance was a microcosm of Belgium’s: good, bad and indifferent. Poor Romelu Lukaku missed a hat-trick of opportunities, and Belgium’s new keeper Koen Casteels made a fine save form Lukas Haraslin’s volley.

45+3 min Slovakia take a short corner on the left. Haraslin crosses deep and Kucka heads a difficult chance off target.

45+1 min “To Chris N’s point (25 min), at the risk of straying into Jonathan Wilson’s turf, it seems to me that rather than a smooth progression to a more sophisticated future, football is a series of back and forths whereby players and tactics are rejected as passé then rediscovered as exciting novelties,” says Tom Hopkins. “In time, I think this will become known as the Niclas Füllkrug Effect.”

What is this nuance of which you speak?

45 min Two minutes of added time. The first half has flown by.

44 min As scruffy as Belgium have been, Lukaku has had three pretty good chances. You have to feel for him, especially after that utter nightmare he had against Croatia in their decisive World Cup game.

42 min: Chance for Lukaku! Carrasco, inside his own half, curls a superb ball over the top for Lukaku. He gets to it first, ahead of the last man Hancko, but his touch round Dubravka is far too heavy and goes behind for a goalkick.

Poor Lukaku has had a nightmare at major tournaments in recent times.

41 min Schranz is booked for a tactical foul.

40 min: Fine save by Casteels! Slovakia have been fantastic. They work the ball neatly down the right to release the tireless Kucka, who looks up and picks out Haraslin on the edge of the area. He sidefoots a careful, technically superb volley that is palmed away by Casteels, diving a long way to his left. That would have been a wonderful goal.

39 min “Let’s be honest,” says David Wall, who didn’t get the memo, “Belgium aren’t going to win the tournament, perhaps their best chance was the last European Championships in 2020. If they were too old in Qatar to win a tournament (according to De Bruyne), then they’re more so now. Considering how good that group of players have been, and that they seemed to have every position covered, has there ever been a bigger failure to realise potential? It’s the international equivalent of Manchester City assembling their current squad but then falling at the semi-final every time.”

I think we had this conversation during the last World Cup. Personally I never thought they were that good. A fine team who could have won a tournament, but I don’t think it was a particular failure for them not to do so.

In international football, the biggest failure to realise potential might be Brazil 1982-86. Not even a semi-final! (I wouldn’t count the Copa America as a huge failure as it was almost a reserve team that played the final.)

36 min When the corner is eventually taken, Onana heads straight at Dubravka. He was jumping backwards so it was a tricky chance.

34 min Doku runs at Hancko in the area and chips a cross that brushes the stretching Hancko and goes behind for a corner. Hancko has injured himself in the process and is receiving treatment, possibly for twisted blood.

32 min Trossard collects a loose ball 22 yards ou and hits an early shot that is blocked by Vavro. I love that his nickname in the Slovakia dressing-room is ‘Bobby’.

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