Well, I just watched my...third? soccer match. With my boy. :) With my girl :), for about five minutes. During which she told us all about The Bachelorette :( and then departed.

France were deserved 1-0 winners. They played stifling defense and were surprisingly dangerous on offense given Belgium's time of possession advantage all match. Belgium's goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois made a few outstanding saves, France challenged him as a sniper throughout, and was not to be faulted on the goal, off a corner which wrong wayed him.

Neither side had an outstanding goal-scoring striker, one of those Kun Aguero type of heat seeking missile-like scorers. Belgium had playmakers, DeBruyne as passer, Eden Hazard as penetrator, but nobody on the receiving end of King Kev's passes, Romelu Lukaku was poor, seemed rusty, was slow to react when the ball came his way, and it did a few times and they would eventually stop Hazard on one of his brilliant maze-like runs. France was there always before critical mass had been reached.

Belgium, it seemed to me and my son and the commentators, did not play wide enough, the announcer said they are playing too narrow, and it was true. The center of the field was always congested by the disciplined French and why Belgium didn't have KDB going down one flank and somebody else down the other, and KDB crossing France to death, and that is KDB's game, I do not know. Kevin was too frequently in the center of the pitch, like a point guard in basketball. France though, was on Kev like stink on shit, sometimes double-teaming him, crowding him always, preventing him from getting the room to kick and the time to scan the pitch to pick out a receiver.

France's keeper, neither my son nor I could pick him out of a lineup we saw so little of him. Courtois, as they say about some hockey goaltenders, "Only the Lord saves more than Courtois." France was deceptively dangerous on attack or at end of game on counter, were opportunistic and took the opportunity of the corner kick to score the only goal they needed.

Well-played match, intensely played. A France-England World Cup final? Ho-ho-ho.