- European preliminaries: France beats Netherlands, Belgium beats Sweden
- 2023-03-25 10:45:19.0 Source: Xinhuanet
Author: Zhang Wei
The French team, captained by Mbappe, beat the Netherlands 4-0 at home on the 24th, gaining their first victory in the 2024 European Football Championship qualifiers. The Belgian team defeated the Swedish team 3-0 on the same day, and Lukaku completed a “hat trick”.
In the first round of Group B competition, the Dutch team suffered a disadvantage before they started. Five players in the team returned home the day before the game due to influenza. The French team, which is at home in Paris, made a perfect start. They scored in just two minutes, and Mbappe assisted Griezmann to outflank and hit the goal.
In the eighth minute, French defender Upamecano rewritten the score to 2:0, taking advantage of the Dutch team’s mistake in the penalty area. Mbappe, who wore the armband of the French team captain for the first time, first scored a single-handed goal in the 21st minute, and then drove straight into the penalty area before the end of the game and made a shot, locking the score at 4:0.
“We have been preparing for a week with the idea of not disappointing the fans.” Mbappe, who has scored 38 goals for the French team and ranks fifth in the French team’s history, said, “This is the first time since the World Cup that we have Playing here. It’s the first step to success, but in the group stage we have to continue to do our best.”
The Belgian team in Group F played away against Sweden on the same day. Lukaku scored with a header in the penalty area in the 35th minute. In the final stage of the game, the Inter Milan striker made another victory and fixed the score at 3:0.
In the 73rd minute, the 41-year-old Ibrahimovic was sent on the field when the team fell behind 0:2, winning warm applause from the home fans. However, the oldest player in the history of the European preliminaries failed to gain.
Greece, which is in the same group as France, beat Gibraltar 3-0 away. The Belgian team’s opponent in the same group, the Austrian team, sent away the Azerbaijan team 4:1. In addition, the Czech team in Group E beat Poland 3:1, Moldova drew with the Faroe Islands 1:1; Bulgaria in Group G lost 0:1 at home to Montenegro, and Serbia beat Lithuania 2:0.
