Belgium vs Romania live updates (2024)

It's just two hours from Belgium to Cologne, in western Germany.

Plenty of Belgians will be beating a path back home tonight with smiles on their faces.

Domenico Tedesco added post-match: "I'm very relieved that we won the game, it was very important to get that three points and of course we missed some chances. It would be great if we could have tied up the game earlier on."

When asked about his side's profligacy, he added: "Yeah, it's a pity (that we needed so many chances to score). I think it was possible to score three, four or five goals tonight. It's great we create these kinds of chances and we need to say patient.

"I've known Kevin (De Bruyne) for about a year now. He was not available to us during the qualifiers. You can feel how positive he is and it's important we get the lads on the pitch in that frame of mind.

"I think we knew how they were going to play with their 4-1-4-1. We knew how they'd defend. We decided to play with those players to counter that. We had to suffer at times, but this is football."

Belgium boss Domenico Tedesco, speaking after the match, said: "We played with the same structure as against Slovakia.

"(Youri) Tielemans did fantastic, as did everyone. We are happy that we took these three points and now we will see for the next game.

"We pressed high, we tried to win the ball high up the pitch. Romania like to control games, it's not easy against them, but our mentality was good."

Romania's Iordanescu added: "In terms of challenges, this was the highest level. We had a great start to the tournament, now let's see how we deal with difficulty. We need solidarity and unity.

"We will analyse it a lot with the team. We had a lot of duels in this game, in contrast to the first game. We did have our chances. We will always try and be better and we will try and improve for the third game. I have complete faith in our team.

"We will do what we can to react (against Slovakia). Every player that came off the bench today was an attacking player, but it was not enough.

"We had to try and not concede too many, but this team was undefeated for quite a while. We had to fight for every ball. We lost a few duels but we have the quality to get out of this."

Romania boss Edward Iordanescu, speaking after the match, said: "You saw a team with lots of quality: they have speed, they have explosion, power.

"They are a complete team. They are a candidate to win the title. We never gave up, we fought very hard. In the second half, we were better. With a bit of luck we could have got a point. We had chances to equalise."

He continued: "We conceded two goals. The first one was a bit unlucky and at half-time I told the lads we have to be calmer.

"The box-to-box tempo wasn't helpful to our cause and we didn't quite manage to play how we wanted."

That was awesome! Belgium’s fans don’t want to go home.

They’ve stayed to cheer the substitutes’ warm-down.

• After tonight's victory, it means Belgium have not drawn a match at the European Championship since a 0-0 stalemate against Italy at the 1980 tournament, all of 19 games ago.
• Belgium have won exactly half of their all-time meetings against Romania (six from 12). This was their first clash at a major tournament.

After that win, the Belgians have never lost their first two matches of a European Championship group.

An important response after their disappointing 1-0 loss first up against Slovakia.

Unsurprisingly, Kevin De Bruyne was named Player of the Match by UEFA.

UEFA's Technical Observer Panel said: "He made the difference for Belgium as they claimed their first points.

"Once again, he was the key player for his side."

No quibbles here.

As much as I was criticising Kevin De Bruyne for moaning at the ref, that just shows how much he wants to win.

And he was fantastic today, the emotional and technical heartbeat of the team.

Five attempts, three on target, one goal, one heck of a performance.

• Yet another disallowed Romelu Lukaku goal
• Have Belgium found a front four that works?
• Romania remain top of the tightest of groups

Here, The Athletic's Oliver Kay and Michael Cox analyse the key moments from the game.

Check out their thoughts below.

For the third time in two games, Lukaku had a goal chalked off.

It looked as though the pass from De Bruyne was perfect and the run timed to perfection yet, once again, VAR did its thing and the goal did not stand. It looked remarkably tight but it was ruled offside.

Belgium’s record goalscorer must take consolation from the fact that he’s consistently getting into the right positions, working the keeper and even finding the back of the net (initially at least).

Surely his luck will change sooner rather than later because at the moment it would be tempting to wonder if he might just be cursed.

It can't be easy for Ianis Hagi, living up to the famous family name of his father Gheorghe, who is widely seen as the best Romanian footballer of all time.

The gap between Gheorghe's last European Championship match, in the Euro 2000 quarter-final, and Ianis' appearance in the Romania's 3-0 win against Ukraine in their first match of this tournament?

8760 days. That's 210, 240 hours by the way. A long time.

Thanks to The Athletic's super Duncan Alexander for that statistic!

It cannot have been easy for Koen Casteels to step into the shoes (and gloves) of the absent Thibaut Courtois, his teammate at Genk at the start of his career.

Casteels has been part of the international setup for over a decade yet has had to settle for being second banana with one of the world’s great goalkeepers ahead of him in the pecking order.

With Courtois injured, his deputy is under a tremendous amount of pressure, but he made terrific saves in both halves and will gain confidence from this display ahead of the key clash with Ukraine on Wednesday.

It feels hard to believe Kevin De Bruyne came in for some criticism after the shock defeat to Slovakia in the opening game.

The Manchester City legend is one of the game’s true greats and will turn 33 next week yet shows no signs of slowing down.

At times against Romania, the Belgium captain was unplayable and proved that the early tournament criticism was simply absurd.

There is not a single team, club or country, that would not be glad to have De Bruyne in their starting XI and his through ball for the disallowed Lukaku goal was a thing of beauty.

And it was his goal that settled things at a time when it felt like Romania might just nick a draw.

That's it! That's the ball game!

Belgium win and keep a fascinatingly poised Group E alive.

A great contest. Brilliant entertainment.

90+4' Belgium 2-0 Romania

We're into the fourth and final minute of stoppage time.

Too late for Romania to mount a comeback, methinks.

Though you never know!