Football is so fickle that it changes the funeral face of a Belgian fan for a smile and jumps of joy, simply for a detail as minor as seeing yourself on the stadium’s giant screen. The sport of the ball and the 22 players are so capricious that after three clear chances that Doku creates for his team, it occurs to him to go down to receive a throw-in in his favor and converts it into the goal that gives victory to Slovakia. A game changes so much due to a fleeting detail, which goes unnoticed at first glance, that Lukaku is taken away by the demons after enthusiastically celebrating two goals and seeing how the VAR takes them away from him, the first for his own reasons, the out of bounds. game in his shot, and the second by someone else’s, the very slight hand of Openda in his struggle to take the ball and then center.
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Koen Casteels, Timothy Castagne, Yannick Carrasco, Zeno Debast, Wout Faes, Jérémy Doku, Orel Mangala, Amadou Onana, Leandro Trossard, Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Johan Bakayoko (Orel Mangala, min. 56), Youri Tielemans (Leandro Trossard , min. 73), Dodi Lukébakio (Yannick Carrasco, min. 83) and Loïs Openda (Jérémy Doku, min. 83)
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Martin Dúbravka, Peter Pekarík, Denis Vavro, Dávid Hancko, Milan Skriniar, Ondrej Duda, Stanislav Lobotka, Juraj Kucka, Ivan Schranz, Róbert Bozeník, Lukás Haraslín, Tomás Suslov (Lukás Haraslín, min. 69), David Strelec (Róbert Bozeník, min. 69), Dávid Duris (Ivan Schranz, min. 80) and Adam Obert (Ondrej Duda, min. 93)
Goals
0-1 min. 6: Schranz
Referee Halil Umut Meler
Orel Mangala (min. 28), Schranz (min. 40), Tielemans (min. 75), Lukebakio (min. 84)
All of this, too, is the best thing about football, so unpredictable that it delivers surprises here and there, and Belgium’s defeat against a rival that is, in principle, minor, is still so. The Belgians fell and are beginning to disappoint again in a great tournament, despite Kevin De Bruyne’s desperate attempts to do everything and everywhere; although the Belgians present a lineup full of well-known names, much more than the Slovaks, who are led by Lobotka, a titan in the midfield, fireproof, who gives a review of the most basic lessons of football to whoever wants to watch him.
It all begins in Frankfurt with Belgium that overwhelms, that pushes and creates chances, which perhaps are lost due to overconfidence in their own qualities. Doku is the main cause of the problems in the Slovak area. But he is also the alpha and the omega, the matter and the antimatter when he approaches his area to resolve a ball release on his own. In the new catechism of football, it is a sin to hit a ball. Almost deadly. And the new writings of the football bible are finding more and more unconditional believers.
Doku is one of them, so after receiving a throw-in, he suddenly finds himself surrounded, he thinks about it, he doesn’t know what to do, but he can’t think of sending the ball to the other field or to the stands. And he commits a perhaps greater sin, which is playing horizontally towards the interior of his own area. Anathema. So he gives it to Schranz, who plays as a spur for Kucka, who shoots for the rejection of Casteels, sold, who falls again to Schranz to score without opposition. And again capricious football, which can tilt fortune to one side or the other by millimeters. The scorer is in legal position for very little. That changes the skin of the game. Belgium gets stuck and Slovakia can score another in a delicious play, which, like all of them, begins with Lobotka; Kucka spurs it on, crosses back and Haraslín finishes hard so that Casteels makes Courtois forget.
Belgium had no choice but to push and trust in the clairvoyance of De Bruyne and the effectiveness of Lukaku, but the City genius was blown dry and the Roma striker was frustrated by the VAR in two actions. Midway through the second half, it seemed that the Belgians could tie. They overwhelmed the Slovakian goal for a while and Lukaku, apart from the goals that did not count, had a good chance with a pass from De Bruyne, but all attempts were in vain. Too neat in the rival area, the Belgians got stuck first and then became desperate. Slovakia held on, took the victory and gave one of the surprises of the first phase.
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