France 1-0 Belgium: 5 Talking Points as Les Bleus Storm into Final, World Cup 2018

#4 France effectively shut down Belgian attack

Romelu Lukaku was effectively silenced by France's defence

Although it was quite an open game with plenty of chances created, it was France who managed to keep Belgium at bay with some good man-marking and defending in numbers.

Romelu Lukaku was invisible throughout the game and was barely involved with both Raphael Varane and Samuel Umtiti dealing with him with considerable ease.

Without a creative force in midfield, both Eden Hazard and Kevin De Bruyne had to drop deep to bring the ball into the final third. That made them easy pickings for N'Golo Kante and Paul Pogba to assert their physical dominance in midfield.

While their brilliance did allow them to make inroads, they couldn't get past the final wall of defenders to trouble Hugo Lloris.

And when Belgium did manage to get shots on target, Lloris was on hand to make some fine saves to deny the Red Devils a sniff on goal.

Even after Dries Mertens and Yannick Carrasco came on, Deschamps responded by bringing on Steven Nzonzi to help protect the slender lead.

And to top it all off, it was Umtiti's goal from a France corner that made the difference in the end.