Do France and England have to be this boring?

This wasn't much to applaud. Mission accomplished, on to the next one.

I saw the Germans leave the pitch cheering for a place in the quarter-finals for over an hour, as well as a group of Spaniards.

The French fans left almost immediately.

You should probably be careful about drawing conclusions from it, but this team doesn't attract anyone, not even its members.

360 minutes of football. Three goals, two own goals, one penalty.

But as long as they are progressing, it is not easy to criticise Didier Deschamps. He has given France much to cheer about, both as a player and as a coach, and he may do so again this summer.

He is a winner and doesn't seem to care how he looks. Deschamps is now two wins away from reaching another final.

The same goes for the other favourites, England, who are not looking much better. The two biggest star-studded prospects are the two sleepiest teams in the European Commission.

Let it be So Boring? Should you go so slowly when there is so much speed? While Germany – and especially Spain – rush forward in well-known attacking patterns, France and England seem primarily afraid of losing control.

The English stars have looked out of shape, while the French stars I don't know exactly what they look like. Didier Deschamps likes to be safe and defensive, do what the coach says and then it will be like it will be. It's not the first time.

But William Saliba is towering as ever at Arsenal, the cross to Tchouameni is pure joy and helped a little in the second half. But that will almost certainly be Mbappe's too.

Maybe he has trouble seeing through his mask when he receives passes from the side and doesn't shoot better than a player from the Norwegian second division?

The Belgians didn't have much to brag about either. They had talked loudly about avenging their bitter semi-final defeat six years earlier, but had to settle for a home-court triumph.

De Bruyne becomes very lonely, Doku runs away from most people, but sometimes runs away from himself too and when Lukaku loses duels and makes strange choices, it becomes difficult to create anything.

This match saw extra time and penalties, but then a 37-year-old man stretched his leg and this own goal was the saddest ending to a sad match.

This was probably Vertonghen's last chance, as he had been with his national team since he had almost made the national team laugh and the TV channels could barely bear to broadcast the matches. Almost no one was watching.

Vertonghen made his debut in the summer of 2007. Belgium were ranked 62nd in the world. He was there when they lost to Estonia and missed out on a place at the 2010 World Cup by a wide margin, and he was there when Belgium drew with Azerbaijan and missed out on the European Championship in 2012.

Since then, Belgium have been to everything, and so has Jan Vertonghen, three World Cups and three European Championships. The Belgian miracle unfolded before his eyes, one star after another emerging. Everyone was talking about Belgium going and having to win something big.

But things always go wrong and the stories will be drawn again that the golden generation failed. It almost seems like De Bruyne & Co. committed treason.

The only thing they did was be incredibly good, being ranked almost continuously as the best in the world for four years, from 2018 to 2022.

But there is no automaticity in winning European or World Cup titles, even if the Belgians, who stopped beating their drums half an hour after the defeat, think so.

This was Belgium's fourth decisive one-goal defeat against a major nation, first to Argentina (who were champions), then to France (who were champions), then to Italy (who were champions) and now to France again. Who of course could become champions.

But Didier Deschamps only won in the end. OnceToilet 2018Although he represented Belgium and tried in all tournaments since 2014.

Maybe he can do it again. Maybe we can have a little fun, too.