What Went Wrong For Belgium's Golden Generation?

Belgium went from nobodies on the international stage to powerhouses at the beginning of the 2010s, with a Golden Generation which starred the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard, Vincent Kompany, Romelu Lukaku, and Thibaut Courtois.

Despite leading the FIFA World Rankings for longer than any other team over the last ten years, Belgium's inability to win anything, or even reach a major final, has seen them derided as failures.

In this video, HITC Sevens examines Belgium's Golden Generation a bit more closely, why they never reached the heights some expected of them at tournaments, and whether they should be considered failures at all.

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[ultrainstinctshaggy]

As usual, no football documentary would be complete without geopolitics. Keep it up Alfie

[neomeersman]

As a Belgian, I regret that we didn't win anything, but i'm still proud of what Belgium showed at Brazil 2014, France 2016 and especially Russia 2018. The victory aggainst Japan and Brazil are moments i won't forget. And knowing that they had come frome a period where they didn't qualify for a tournament between 2002 and 2012; to a golden generation with stars like De Bruyne, Courtois, Hazard and Kompany, who reaced 3rd place. Other people may say we're a failure, but this video shows that there's a lot more story behind it. I'm proud of what Belgium showed in the last 10 years.

[adamdickinson]

They were knocked out with narrow 1-goal losses to the eventual champions for the two tournaments at the squad's peak. I think people forget football is a game of such fine margins sometimes and just two moments can change a team from successes to failures in the eyes of the public

[rethhuloay]

Additionally, I don't think they ever meshed as a team, and cliche as that is, a football team wins games, a squad of individuals don't.

[SarahCharles]

I love your videos, Alfie. One of the only channels in which you can click on a video with a title like "Why didn't [National Football Team] win a trophy between 2014 and 2024?" and to not only actually answer that question clearly and honestly, but also provide a summary of 19th and 20th-century politics of that nation as a bonus treat.

[martystern]

Third place isn’t a terrible result…tournament football has knife’s edge margins

[timmcelroy]

Say what you will but 3rd place in a World Cup is still a tremendous achievement. The semi-final against France was the real final. One of the greatest games I’ve watched, didn’t want it to end.

[FKrazy]

7:00 I think we can all agree that the highlight of Anthony Vanden Borre's career was getting sent off against Blackburn and prompting Chris Kamara's infamous "I dunno, Jeff" gaffe

[Zargothrax_wizard-king]

Nothing went wrong, we had our best group of players ever, and we ended up with our best world cup result ever

[maud]

Nothing went wrong. There can only be one winner of every tournament and there are a lot of good teams out there. Holland 1998, Portugal 2004, USSR 1986, Hungary 1954, Brasil 1982, etc.. these were all good teams that failed to win a big tournament but were fun to watch. I don't think of these teams as failures, but remember watching them with a smile on my face. (well, obviously '54 was well before my time but you get what I mean ;) )

[dvdv]

27:58 "They overcame an incredibly resilient Japan team, who twice took the lead against them."

*Minor* correction there: Japan went up two goals (0-2) early in the second half, Belgium came back and scored the winning goal (3-2) in added time/the dying seconds of the second half.

[Arcticmonkeysfanboy_]

I love the whole whats more and indeed pics 😭

[lucaslonchampt]

10:30 I will note, Dimitri Payet got injured during the Europa League final, which happened just days before Deschamps announced his squad

[seandelap]

The same could be said about England i mean how many golden generations have they supposedly had since winning the WC in 1966 yet have mostly fallen spectacular flat since then

[Pheadrixx]

Finally an actual good honest review of that belgium squad. Anyone saying that belgium was a failure is just not very intelligent we had an insanely good squad for how tiny and irrelevant our country is otherwise but how that would equate to HAVING to win a trophy against other huge footballing nations with likewise godsquads in a single elimination tournament that has a huge luck factor is just insanity.

[eddixon]

International Football is just really hard.

However, I’d argue the one that got away was Euro 2016, when they lost to Wales in the Quarterfinals. They would have been favorites to smash Portugal in the semis and have made that final.

[reevo]

Having spoken to one of my good friends who is Belgian about this before, he said there was less of a feeling that this team should have won something, but more a feeling of sadness that if this team wasn’t capable of winning, then he doubts there will be a Belgian team capable of doing so for a long time. Belgium aren’t footballing giants with a huge domestic league that will continually produce world class players, and as such there is a feeling that the best years for a long time have been and gone

[choco-une]

the actual 2018 World Cup FINAL was France v Belgium

[koopalibrary]

2018 was the year. unfortunately 1 header decided that semi

[knotwilg]

Lack of fullbacks, injuries or the split national identity wasn't the issue.

The biggest reason for me is the absence of a winner's tradition. Belgium has always been an underdog, relying on defense and counterattack to stage upsets. Our best results were a final in 1980's EC after a series of draws and 1986's semi-finals, which all things considered was really one spectacular game against Russia, . Four years later we played a much better tournament but were eliminated early and against play, by England. And in 1994 we were pushed back into the dark ages by Saieed Owairam. Public reaction was "See, we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. We're only Belgium."

When the "golden generation" came about, we were expected to dominate. Individually the players knew how to do that from the top teams they were in but as a team, Belgium had to develop that playing style and mentality from scratch. It didn't help that Wilmots, a good motivator, was a poor tactician, raised in the era of counterattacking. And Martinez didn't really know how to play dominant football either. His management consisted mostly of keeping everybody as happy as possible. So when it came to deciding who'd be the playmaker, Hazard and De Bruyne were left to figuring that out by themselves.

Another factor lies with our main striker, Romelu Lukaku. As much as I admire his dedication to the sport and acknowledge him as the most prolific striker Belgium has ever had, we can't ignore the fact that he needs space to perform at his best. In small spaces he's not at ease. I would even say that Lukaku's negative energy, thriving off "haters", was detrimental to the overall positive spirit you need to win a title.

Finally, it's hard to create a winning team when two of the main players have been entangled in a history of deceit. Courtois[ infamously ran off with De Bruyne's girlfriend. De Bruyne has never forgiven his team mate for that, even if he dealt with it in a professional manner. Lately Courtois put himself outside the team by making a fuzz about the captain's ribbon. Coincidentally or not, we're seeing a better team spirit already, be it that the quality is much lower.

But I come back to the main argument: our national football identity was not up to the sum of the individual talent. It's symbolic that our most memorable goal, the 3-2 against Japan, came from a counterattack in the final minutes, after having reverted a 1-2 situation, avoiding humiliation.