Anwar Ibrahim (Cairo)
Three years, two months and 28 days after the 2018 World Cup semi-final match in Russia, the French and Belgian teams will meet next Thursday in Turin, in the semi-finals of the European Nations League, a match that coach Didier Deschamps sees as a “battle” in the sporting sense of the word and not the literal meaning of the word. While Roberto Martinez, coach of the Red Devils national team, refuses to view it as a kind of revenge or revenge for the World Cup defeat. As for the veteran player, Axel Witsel, the midfielder of the Belgian national team and the German club Borussia Dor Tamund, he sees it as a very special match, between two teams, each of which has its winning cards.
France beat Belgium in the World Cup semi-finals in Russia, with a goal scored by defender Samuel Umtiti, and reached the final and won the championship after defeating Croatia. Witsel admitted that it will be a completely different match from the previous meetings between the two teams, indicating that he wants to overcome the obstacle of the roosters and qualify for the final match to win the honor of winning the first continental championship.
Witsel, who played the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and 2018 in Russia, hopes that his country will play a good match and does not want to talk about the 2018 semi-final. One of the best games everyone has been talking about.
Witsel expressed his satisfaction that French midfielder N’Golo Kante did not participate in the match, due to his infection with the “Covid-19” virus, and described him as a player with 6 lungs and 32 legs. He added: The roosters have many other trump cards, and they have distinguished and skilled players such as Benzema, who is going through the best periods of his football career these days, Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann, Paul Pogba and others.
In front of them are Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard, Romelu Lukaku and others. Witsel revealed that right-back Thomas Meunier of Borussia Dortmund left the Red Devils camp due to a knee injury in his team’s match in the German League “Bundesliga” at the weekend. It is worth noting that Axel Witsel, born on January 12, 1989 (32 years old), played for Standard clubs. Liege, Benfica, Zenit Saint Petersburg and Tianjin Quangyan of China, until he settled in Borussia Dortmund since 2018.
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