Belgium threw away five years of hard work - Martinez

Roberto Martinez

believes Belgium wasted their hard work in the last five years during their defeat against France in the Nations League.

Yannick Carrasco

scored the opener for his side and

Romelu Lukaku

netted another in their clash against France but they were defeated 3-2.

Theo Hernandez’s last-minute goal helped France secure a spot in the Final only after Lukaku believed he had given Belgium their lead back, only for the VAR to rule it out as offside.

Belgium will go against Italy to decide third place in the Nations League. Martinez insisted that his side only have themselves to blame for the loss.

"

We are very disappointed that we could not hold onto the lead,"

he said in post-match media duties. 

"We didn't have enough control in the second half. We let France get back into the game.

"When you play against someone like France, they punish all mistakes. We brought France into the game at a time when that shouldn't happen again.

"This is a competition in which we had to show our experience and all our hard work of the past five years. The disappointment is huge because the hard work and all the efforts the team has put in has been thrown away."

Martinez’s complaints can be supported by the game’s statistics, with Belgium having eight shots compared to France’s four, possession of (55.8 per cent), and passes of 389 in comparison with 305.

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