Strange incident in Euro 2024.. Belgium qualifies for the round of 16 and its fans chant against it | Sports

Belgium fans booed their team during a goalless draw with Ukraine at Euro 2024 on Wednesday that set up a last-16 clash with France.

The boos grew louder when Belgium captain Kevin De Bruyne was named man of 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 champions, preferred not to answer when asked about the hostile reaction of his country’s fans, which was also shown 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.”

“It’s a pity we couldn’t score, we had chances. After that, we just need our fans. We did everything we could in the three games, the team ran until the 95th minute, everyone wants to win games and we tried to do that,” he continued.

De Bruyne, the captain of the Belgian national team, was angry because of the boos from his country’s fans after the goalless draw against Ukraine, and decided not to greet the fans and asked the team players to go directly to the locker room.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.

“We knew we couldn’t fail today,” Tedesco said. “The players tried everything. If we had scored earlier, things would have been easier. I’m proud of my team because they did everything until the end. If we had conceded a goal, we would have been out.”

“We will play to win,” Tedesco said of facing France, the 2022 World Cup runners-up. “We are here and we qualified for the European Championship to be among the best teams. Now we will face a great team. That is why we qualified, otherwise we would have stayed at home.”