With Kylian Mbappe out with an injury, France and the Netherlands played to a scoreless draw in Leipzig, advancing both teams to the round of 16. After fracturing his nose in France’s opening 1-0 triumph over Austria just four days earlier, the French captain sat out the entire match from the bench.

Antoine Griezmann missed two fantastic opportunities for France, and Xavi Simons’ goal for the Netherlands was controversially disallowed.

Thanks to a shared victory, both teams now sit atop Group D with four points, one more than Austria, who defeated Poland 3-1 earlier in the day.

In Tuesday’s last games of the section, France will play Poland and the Netherlands will face Austria.

Mbappe scored four of France’s six goals in those two qualification matches, but Les Bleus triumphed both times.

“We are talking about one of the best players in the world, so course that is different for both teams,” commented Ronald Koeman, the leader of the Netherlands national football team, on the exclusion of the Real Madrid forward from their roster.France coach Didier Deschamps implied that starting Kylian Mbappe would have been a different call in a knockout game, but that his team was nearly guaranteed to go to the next round, so there was no need to take any chances.

A decisive game today evening would have made Deschamps reconsider starting him, but he’s improving every day, so he’ll be OK any way, according to the coach.

Finally, we’ve reached a place where he’ll benefit. Considering what transpired, I felt it would have been prudent to retain him on the bench.

Spurred on by an orange barrier encircling two-thirds of the Leipzig Stadium, the Dutch were almost ready to seize any French lapse in concentration within the first minute.

Mike Maignan deflected Jeremie Frimpong’s attempt after the Bayer Leverkusen man had raced clear on goal with his blistering speed.

Griezmann squanders

The 2022 World Cup finalists looked to Griezmann for motivation in the absence of their captain and star player.

From a distance, the stand-in skipper pricked Bart Verbruggen’s palms.

Unfortunately, the best opportunity for the Atletico Madrid forward to open the game before halftime went begging.

After Adrien Rabiot elected to pass instead of shoot, Griezmann was unable to connect with his less powerful right foot, despite an elaborate move that had him set up Rabiot.

After the half, Griezmann missed yet another golden opportunity when Verbruggen saved a weak shot with the goal gaping.

However, the fact that the Dutch were denied a winner was the main talking point of the first goalless draw of the tournament.

After Memphis Depay’s shot was saved by Maignan 18 minutes from time, midfielder Simons of Paris Saint-Germain fired in the rebound.

Field officials deemed Denzel Dumfries to be in the way of Maignan’s ability to block the shot, thereby disallowing the goal due to offside.

France was granted a respite after a long video assistant referee review—a pleasant rarity at this tournament—confirmed the offside.

Even if Dumfries isn’t obstructing the goalkeeper, I still consider his stance to be offside. “In my opinion, that is a legal goal,” Koeman added.

“Do you also require five minutes to verify it?” What is going on here?

To find a winner in the dying minutes, Deschamps substituted Olivier Giroud and Kingsley Coman for Mbappe, passing up the opportunity to risk the French superstar.

The two teams compromised for a draw, which will most likely be enough to progress them to the next round owing to a safety net that allows the top four teams in third place to participate.