Jan Vertonghen conceded he had his work cut out trying to shackle rampant France forward Kylian Mbappe during Belgium’s narrow World Cup semi-final defeat.
Samuel Umtiti headed in the only goal after 51 minutes at Krestovsky Stadium to set up a final meeting against Croatia or England for Les Bleus.
But it was Paris Saint-Germain teenager Mbappe who proved the most consistent and potent attacking threat within an otherwise cautious display from Didier Deschamps’ side.
Vertonghen was deployed on the left-hand side of a hybrid three/four-man Belgium defence – a tactic head coach Roberto Martinez retained from the impressive 2-1 quarter-final win over Brazil.
Within the opening 10 seconds of the match, Mbappe darted past the Tottenham defender, who stuck to his task manfully from that point onwards.
“It’s been a while because in the last three years with this coach I haven’t been playing left-back and neither at Tottenham, so I had to switch on a bit,” he said.
“The last two games were against Willian, Douglas Costa and now Mbappe. They were quite tough and obviously Mbappe has great quality. He’s a great player.”