Why Belgium's Golden Generation Failed - 40/40 Shorts

The Belgium national football team's golden generation fell short of expectations in major tournaments from 2014 to 2022. Despite having a talented group of players, they failed to win a major trophy. They reached the quarterfinals of the 2014 World Cup, the quarterfinals of Euro 2016, finished third in the 2018 World Cup, and were eliminated in the quarterfinals of Euro 2020. The lack of an elite goal scorer, tactical naivete, bad luck, and injuries were some of the reasons for their underperformance.

[@knotwilg3596]

One factual correction: our best result in a major tournament was the finals of the European Cup in 1980, losing to Germany. In the group stage of that same tournament, we eliminated Italy, England and Spain, advancing to the finals straight away in what was a short contest back then. Our success wasn't based on top class individuals but a hard working group of fighters, defensively strong, conceding very few goals and scoring on the counter attack.
This was exemplary for our style of football which has always been about the counter attack. Dominant football like our neighbours the Dutch was never part of our identity. Our most prestigious club Anderlecht had always been the exception, where winning wasn't enough, it had to be in stylish fashion. They too however would convert to counter tactics in the 80s, under the coaching of Tomislav Ivic.
When our golden generation emerged, it was partly thanks to these individuals being raised in the Netherlands, with Ajax (Vertongen, Alderweireld) or France (Eden Hazard at Lille) or again with Anderlecht (Kompany, Lukaku) and the newly formed club RC Genk (De Bruyne, Courtois). Together they indeed formed a golden generation, individually successful in top European clubs. However, together they seemed unable to recreate the dominant football they were familiar with on their club level. They always seemed to revert back to counter tactics, as if our identity would still require them doing so. Remember the best goal ever they scored: the winning counter attack against Japan.
The dichotomy of being the favorite, expecting dominance, and the intrinsic nature of counter attacking, is IMO what truly has prevented the team from excelling at the big tournaments. Incidentally, I believe the same is true for England. The top English players are accustomed to today's reigning style in the PL. They are yet unable to merge this high level experience into their historical style of kick and rush.

[@4040visionpod]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and thoughts! I completely missed that 1980 Euro Cup final and i agree with everything you said.

[@verspin]

I mean hey winning the bronze model on the world cup isn't nothing

[@4040visionpod]

True but it’s a failure bc they didn’t make one final in 5 tournaments. That’s rough