Sports commentary has a lot of clichesclichés with specific meanings, and I don't know the specific usage of the French phrase, so I'm guessing here. But:
"Didn't take their chances" -- their play on the whole was good, they created opportunities to score ("chances"), but couldn't take enough shots or their shots on goal were not good enough. This is still a criticism of the play.
"Lacked a bit of quality in the final third" -- as above. "Quality" of play, "final third" meaning the opponent's end of the field. This is formulaic/clichéed.
"Had no success" -- more or less a literal translation, but a bit more natural football-English than "lack of success". This is a statement of facts without judgement, it doesn't imply why they had no success.
"Had no joy" -- as above, less literal translation but means the same thing as "had no success" to an English football supporter.
"Played well but didn't score" -- nothing beats saying what you mean ;-)
"Couldn't get the goal (they needed)" -- again, say it how it is. This is more of a cliché, and is also heard in more elaborate forms like "just couldn't get that goal". You'd say this of a team that lost 1-0 or 2-1, and had a reasonable amount of time to equalise at the end.
"Were unlucky" -- their play was good enough to win but they didn't win. This isn't a criticism. Sometimes "unlucky" is used specifically to mean the victim of bad callsdecisions by the referee, for example "unlucky to concede that penalty" generally means it shouldn't have been a penalty.
"The better side lost" -- an even stronger version of "unlucky", this suggests that the other side shouldn't have won. The speaker might think they were lucky, or they cheated, or just that there was one specific aspect of their play that neutralised the loser's superior play.