Simons sees goal disallowed as Oranje, France play to scoreless draw

France and the Netherlands played to a thrilling scoreless draw in Leipzig in Group D play at UEFA Euro 2024.

The Oranje will feel hard done by not to have scored with a Xavi Simons strike controversially called back for an incidental offside.

The match was the first scoreless draw of the tournament.

With a facial injury incurred against Austria on Matchday 1, Kylian Mbappé was not in the starting XI for Les Bleus with Real Madrid midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni drafted into Didier Deschamps' side in his absence. While dressed to play, he was not used as a substitute.

Both teams went for it from the opening whistle.

In the second, Jeremie Frimpong got a jump on Theo Hernandez down the left and forced Mike Maignan into the first big save of the match, with the Milan goalkeeper diving to his right to parry away.

Then Antoine Griezmann took a shot from about 20 yards out with Bart Verbruggen up to the test, pushing it over the bar in the fifth.

In the 11th, Memphis Depay thought he had a penalty. Backing into the area, he was muscled off the ball by William Saliba. Memphis looked over at referee Anthony Taylor who offered nothing.

Minutes later, Adrien Rabiot had to score. Played in behind the backline, the Juventus midfielder inexplicably tried to set up Griezmann from six yards out instead of shooting with the glorious chance going completely to waste and eliciting huge groans from the France supporters in the stadium.

Near the half-hour mark, Inter's Marcus Thuram blasted over from an angle after being the offside trap. Replays appeared to show that Thuram thought himself to be offside and might have taken his foot off of the gas a little bit.

France continued to push forward to close out the half with nothing to show for it.

The biggest moment of the match came in the 69th. Against the run of play, the Dutch broke forward into the area. The ball fell to Simons and the Paris Saint-Germain man unleashed a low drive to beat Maignan, sending the Oranje fans into a frenzy. But Tayor went over to his linesman and a very late offside flag went up.

Denzel Dumfries was in an offside position. That was for certain, but the issue was whether or not the Inter man was stopping Maignan from making a play. Upon a VAR review, the goal remained disallowed.

Rabiot had a chance to win the match in the 88th, but again attempted to pass instead of shooting. Coming down the right, Rabiot crossed the ball in for substitute Kingsley Coman, rather than taking a pop on goal himself, and his effort was poor.

The result leaves both teams on four points after two matches atop Group D with Austria on three and Poland on none.

Group D play wraps up on Tuesday with France taking on Poland and the Oranje meeting Austria.