Hazard and Courtois hit out at France’s defensive tactics
SAINTPETERSBURG: Belgium captain Eden Hazard and their goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois criticised France for their approach in the World Cup semi-final after his team’s 1-0 loss on Tuesday.
A second-half header from Samuel Umtiti was all they needed to book their spot in Sunday’s final. Hazard was Belgium’s most threatening player as his team struggled to find a way through a compact France outfit.
“I prefer to lose with this Belgium than win with this France,” Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad quoted Hazard as saying.
Courtois agreed. “France heads a corner and does nothing more than defend,” Courtois was quoted as saying by Belgian radio channel Sporza. “I would have preferred to have lost in the quarter-finals to Brazil; at least that was a team that wanted to play football. [France] are just an antifootball team.”
“But they do defend strongly and are very efficient. We have not found their weak point. That little moment of magic needed to score was not there,” said Hazard. “We have seen a fantastic Belgian team and have been eliminated by a team that was more solid than us.”
The loss saw Belgium miss out on reaching a first World Cup final, but they can still better their fourth-place finish of 1986.
Hazard said: “We have shown that we have a very nice team,” he said. “We can be proud of what we have achieved. As a captain, I am happy to be part of this team.”
Defender Vincent Kompany said he believed Belgium were the best team in Russia. “There was no team better than us at this world championship,” he was quoted as saying by the Het Nieuwsblad.
“We had more opportunities than in 2014 against Argentina [in the quarter-finals], and had more control. We knew how we would make it difficult for this team and how we wanted to limit the risk at the back and that worked out well.
“It was a matter of details and one stood out. We respect what they have laid down.we have not lost to a team that is better than us, but we have to congratulate them. They succeeded once and that was enough.”