6/27/2024–|Last updated: 6/27/202404:14 PM (Mecca time)
Belgian fans booed their team during the goalless draw with Ukraine in the European Football Championship 2024 – yesterday, Wednesday – which led to a confrontation with France in the quarter-finals of the continental championship.
The boos increased when Belgium captain Kevin De Bruyne was chosen as the best player in the match.
Videos spread on social media showed De Bruyne angry at the booing and decided not to greet the audience and asked the team players to go directly to the locker rooms.
But the Manchester City midfielder, the English Premier League champion, preferred not to respond when asked about the hostile reaction of his country’s fans, which was also carried out by fans of other teams against their players in Germany.
De Bruyne said, “We tried to win the match, and until the 90th minute we had chances to score… We know that it is possible to concede a goal, and when that happens, we will be eliminated from the European Championship.”
He continued, “It is unfortunate that we were not able to score. We had opportunities. After that, we only need our fans… We did everything we could during the three matches. The team ran until the 95th minute. Everyone wants to win the matches and we tried to do that.”
De Bruyne, the captain of the Belgium national team, was angry because of the booing his country’s fans launched after the goalless draw against Ukraine, and he decided not to greet the fans and asked the team players to go directly to the dressing rooms.https://t.co/NghwGPUS4B pic.twitter.com/j5fGfsm7PJ
– Al Jazeera Net Sports (@AJASports) June 27, 2024
The goalless draw led to Belgium occupying second place in Group Five. Behind the leader Romania.
Belgium coach Domenico Tedesco understood the frustration of his team’s fans, but he supported his players’ cautious performance. All the teams in the group had equal points before the start of the final round, and there was no room for error.
Tedesco said, “We knew that we could not fail today. The players tried everything. We could have scored early, then things would have been easier. I am proud of my team because they did everything until the end. If we had conceded a goal, we would have been eliminated.”
Tedesco said about facing France, the 2022 World Cup runner-up, “We will play to win. We are here and qualified for the European Championship to be among the best teams. Now we will face a big team. That is why we qualified, otherwise we would have to stay at home.”
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