France vs. Belgium Prediction on July 1, 2024

Match info

When France and Belgium go one against another on Monday, July 1, at 6 p.m. local time at the Merkur Spiel-Arena in Düsseldorf, Germany, one of the top favorites for the men’s 2024 UEFA European Football Championship (UEFA Euro 2024) gold will be leaving early. Below is our prediction for the round of 16 match between the two neighbors at the continental tournament, including who we believe will win, plus we’ll share with you odds for a duel from bookmakers in Belgium.

Meeting statistics

The current form of France

With only five points from its three games and two goals scored, France had a poor group stage performance for its standards, finishing second behind Austria. Such a placement was a consequence of a draw between them and Poland, who had already been eliminated, on the last day of the groups. Kylian Mbappé converted a penalty kick to score his first goal in the European Championship, but Robert Lewandowski of Barcelona, a Polish standout player, set the score with another penalty kick.

After failing to sit atop Group D, Didier Deschamps’s team was thrown into the more difficult half of the bracket. “Les Bleus” (the “Blues”) will need to work hard to win the title, but with Mbappé, the masked sniper, on the team, anything can happen. Antoine Griezmann was benched by Deschamps against Poland, but we anticipate that the Atlético Madrid attacker will be back in the starting lineup come the round of 16.

The current form of Belgium

Like France, Belgium couldn’t live up to expectations made before the tournament to run through the preliminaries, as it lost shockingly to Slovakia in its first Group E match before finishing as runner-up. Furthermore, Domenico Tedesco’s side had an uneventful goalless draw with Ukraine on the last day of group play, putting on a listless performance. Each of the group’s four teams finished the phase with four points. The goal differential decided the final standings, which eliminated the Ukrainians.

In addition, in their three games, “De Rode Duivels” (the “Red Devils”) only managed two goals. Romelu Lukaku appeared increasingly irritated after three of his goals were disallowed by VAR. We anticipate that Tedesco will send the same starting lineup from the match against Ukraine to the pitch.

Head-to-head

Dating back to the last century (120 years back to be more precise), France and Belgium faced off 75 times. The latter has a better record of 30 wins. France prevailed four times less, while 19 encounters ended with a draw.

Match analytics

Several significant indicators suggest that the audience in Düsseldorf will see the two teams struggle to score on Monday. Under Tedesco, Belgium has been playing extremely defensive football. Three goals or more haven’t been scored in any of their three Euro matches thus far, including a poor goalless draw against Ukraine. In addition, 3+ goals haven't been scored in any of France’s three tournament games here in Germany. Nevertheless, in the preceding five games across all competitions, “Les Bleus” had only given up one goal. Less than three goals were scored in four of the previous six head-to-head matches between these rivals. Under 2.5 goals is therefore the most logical option for betting, along with a transition from a draw at halftime to France’s win.

Tip: Halftime/fulltime & total goals – X/1 and Under (2.5) with odds of 7.02 at Rolletto.