Belgium’s Thoman Meunier was tasked with keeping Neymar at bay and for the most part he was able to just that, keeping the PSG forward wide and not letting him cut in as he’d have liked to.
Meunier also said he had expected more from Neymar.
The two are teammates at PSG.
Speaking after the game, Meunier said; “I didn’t expect that, I expected more difficulties, but we were so organised collectively,”
“I always had help from Marouane Fellaini, from Toby Alderweireld. We were really focused on him, on [Philippe] Coutinho, on Marcelo, and we did a really wonderful job. I think we can congratulate ourselves for the job that we did defensively.
“Even offensively I got really frustrated because I didn’t touch the ball. I made a lot of sacrifices for the team and I am happy that we won because of that.”
Belgium are through to the Semi-Finals after an own goal from Fernandinho and a Kevin DeBruyne cracker gave the Belgians a 2 goal lead, Brazil did get one back through Renato Augusto, but they couldn’t find a way back thanks largely to a disciplined defensive performance and an incredible display from Thibaut Courtois.
Fellow Belgium defender Jan Vertonghen is looking forward to the game against France and he believes it will prove to be a tougher game than the one against Brazil.
“I think France are a bit more complete than Brazil are,” he said.
“I think it will be harder to break them down.”
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