Thibaut Courtois had to pull out all the stops by pushing the back Alphonso Davies penalty from the start of the game. According to Laurent Colemonts, “the error is clear”. “Carrasco has his arm off his body and cuts the trajectory of the ball heading towards goal. The penalty is legitimate.” Note that the corner at the base of this action should not be awarded to the Canadians.

Watch live: Courtois saves a penalty, the Devils under pressure

The Canadians should have gotten a second penalty. In a confused phase, Eden Hazard passed the ball to a Canadian. “The assistant made a mistake signaling offside despite not seeing the pass coming from a Belgian player’s feet. The referee whistles after his linesman, preventing the VAR from resorting to a clear foul by Vertonghen in the rectangle. If he doesn’t whistle, VAR will check and award the penalty.”

And what about Witsel’s foul before the 40th minute of the game? “Technically, I can’t understand why the referee isn’t called on the screen by VAR. He’s clearly stepping on her toe. We could understand that if they feel like Witsel isn’t changing course and touching him on purpose, it’s a gray area. But in my opinion he should have called the referee to check.”

The Devils received several yellow cards after the break. “Meunier’s and Onana’s make sense,” says Colemonts. Onana then flirted with Red for several periods. He is lucky not to have been left out. Johnston should have picked red on his tackle on Openda. He has no intention of playing the ball. And technically it is impossible for the defender to play the ball.