Agreed, crazy how they used a back three & did what they did & on top of that they really took everyone apart in the counter. People brush over how they SMOKED England & Brazil in the counter.
u dream my friend. belgium has easy poule , then only strongest team was france and later they were champion😮. belgium has a good team but can t beat top 5 teams
Feel bad for Belgian football federation, imagine all your investments into a golden generation being ruined by a single player being a massive asshole. Really shows the fine margins in football.
@@m7ray they refused to talk, and it made the training and dressing room atmosphere very awkward as they were supposed to be the team leaders (since Kompany was slowly entering retirement). Having two team leaders who refused to communicate with each other hurts the overall team chemistry a lot.
Real they were all ballers in their prime. I hope Belgium and the Netherlands win a international trophy soon in the future. You have great ball knowledge ngl
They were unfortunate to come up amoungst other golden generations (Spain early 2010s, Germany mid 2010s, France late 2010s and then Argentina in early 2020).
Argentina isn't a golden generation. They're just a well-oiled machine. (IMHO they're a borderline Champions League side + Messi, whereas France is built like Real Madrid) Germany isn't either. They were just the most talented team, some of whom are old (Lahm).
Im sorry but a failure is a gross term to used. For a small country like Belgium their golden generation was incredible, performed better than England's golden generation. They were matched up against other golden generations with much more resources. Although Belgium had a terrific squad, they had weaknesses and a sever lack of depth, something which germany, france etc. never had a problem with. Euro 2016 however I feel they shldve definitely beat wales but other than that, it wasnt a total failure.
Exactly. The entire squad was overhyped by a few good players. Football teams need way more than just the start XI, there's the bench squad, the auxillary squad, the U21s/18s, the management, the committee etc. They all need to work together to win trophies. People never consider how team chemistry, tactics and opposition analysis is done, the game isn't completely played on the pitch, a lot of it is off the pitch, in the training ground and dressing room.
@@spinyslasher6586 Thats.... What Raymar said? "They all need to work together to win trophies". Kind of hard to "work together" when there is serious drama on even the first pick team.
@@spinyslasher6586 We only had (too much) depth in midfield. As soon as more than one first choice defender or Lukaku got injured, we were lost. Everybody was laughing at Romelu for missing four open chances in that one half game he played on the 2022 World Cup, but they forgot to mention that 1. It was his first game in months and he was still playing in pain. 2. He helped creating more chances in that half than the rest of Belgium did in the 2.5 games other games. Without Lukaku, we become powerless.
@@Johnnythefirst The fact that Belgium's only hope as a nation aspiring to be atleast top 3 in the world in Lukaku, shows the actual level of Belgium. No offense to Lukaku, he's a good player in his days, but he's not the guy I'd look to carry a nation in the World Cup on his back.
For me it was having bang average managers which cost Belgium. Although the likes of Spain side early on the German side in 2014 and France after 2016 were superior not just in terms of team work but playing personal. Spain between 08 and 12 probably one if not the best national team ever to play the game.
@@mrboast2826 should’ve been clearer i meant someone like tuchel, not necessarily him. that said, for him per se 2016 was the best chance; 1 year at BVB, good reputation, not yet being chased 2018 is a stretch (Bayern and PSG pursued him) 2020- was no longer golden generation
Failure is a massive reach, even other countries golden generation is just average for the big countries. And besides Hazard, De Bruyne, Cortois, and sometimes Lukaku, you would be hard pressed to call any of the other players genuinely world class
@@idk-dz3fo Too old when other top talent reach their peak...He was world class but he past his prime when like Kevin ,Hazard and other reach best of the best performance
Chemistry played a big part imo. When we beat them in the quarter finals of euro 2016, it felt like we had a team playing against 11 individuals. There’s no way any competent squad of players, especially with the talent of Belgium, should be making Sam Vokes and Hal Robson Kanu look 10x the players they are, against arguably the best squad on paper at Euro 2016. Chemistry is increadibly important. If our squad lacked in chemistry, we would be around the 60s or 70s in fifa world rankings, but because our squad has such a strong identity, we are able to go toe to toe with teams 10x better than us, such as Poland, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands etc. because what we lack in quality, we make up for with our squads chemistry. Gary Speed put a big emphasis on togetherness and squad chemistry, during his stint as manager which has been carried out ever since. Before speed we were 118th, since he’s implemented those values into our squad, we’ve risen as high as 8th, and have been consistantly in the top 30-35 for the past decade.
One of the biggest problems in that match was actually the missing of both Vertonghen (injured) and Vermaelen (expelled) in the same match, which were both prime before their absence. We didn’t have any quality on the bench that could replicate even half of that quality, in both technical and tactical regard. They could also glue the individuals of the team or at least mask the errors from the individuality. I think if the quality of your bench differs that much from your first team, you would need an incredible amount of luck to get to the very final stage of a tournament.
It's not an excuse because on paper we should have still been better, but we had about one decent defender left for that game, and a manager who thought "hoof the ball to hazard" was a tactic.
When you see the chemistry of the Argentine team, Belgian is nothing. Even though Belgian team had much more talent than Argentina team. But Bonding between the players for Messi is heartwarming. This is the reason they won 4 major titles in 4 years.
The France vs Belgium game could have went either way if we look at the squads for both teams. France had several good players like Paul Pogba, Antoine Griezmann, Raphael Varane, and N'Golo Kante. They had almost won the Euro 2016 with almost the same World Cup squad where they lost to Portugal in the Final at home (it could be a different fate if Cristiano Ronaldo didn't got injured).
2018 was probably the closest this generation ever got to actually win a major trophy. Descamps terrorist ball stopped the red devils machine lol. While Croatia's team were more cohesive and technically gifted, almost all their k/o games went into extra time and they were very visibly drained by the final. Hazard and Lukaku would have run riot on that tired defense. But all this is merely what if.
@@Iondaime100 Boring, cowardly football. France have had the most quality of any nation by far for the last 6 years, but nine out of ten games they play atrociously. This last Euros painful to see. England has the same problem btW.
KDB @ 16:55 is correct here ✅ As much as he was part of Belgium's 🇧🇪 golden generation, the France team that beat then were also generational with Varane, Kante, (an on song Pogba), Griezmann and Mbappe. That game could have went either way. The problem with the "golden generation " label 🏷️ is that it makes people forget how good OTHER teams are as well. Tournament football comes down to moments and experience because more than one team is realistically capable of winning. Belgium didn't have much (sustained) experience as a top ranked nation and moments didn't go for them. This video also laid out many reasons why the team couldn't win a major trophy 🏆 despite the talent they had. Some of this could be said for England 🏴 too.
Bit simplistic in my opinion. I see three main reasons that we never managed to win: - Age gap: the golden generation defenders and holding midfielders were al born between 85-87 whereas our strikers, playmakers and wingers were born 91-95. This was a huge problem because there was no prior generation to fall back on, resulting in our defenders only playing their first major international tournament at age 28. So we only had 2-3 tournaments to peak. - Small budget for coaching staff. After Wilmots we needed a top coach with a world class reputation. But we did not have any good Belgian candidates and lacked the budget to get a top tier foreigner. Martinez wasn’t horrible but wasn’t great either. Too mediocre for what we needed. - The lack of wingbacks or fullbacks. While we had insane depth in central defense, the midfield and even in attack, with substitutes playing for Man United, Tottenham, Roma, Liverpool, Napoli… we only had Meunier as a decent fullback. This resulted in Alderweireld, Vertonghen and even Carrasco playing as fullbacks or wingbacks. The gossip about KDB and Courtois is not entirely accurate. Courtois was at Atletico and KDB had already broken up with the girl for a while. There was a bit of friction but they talked it through with the coach. Afterwards both players married women that are much more beautiful and became fathers. So it didnt affect the team during the crucial 2016-21 period. Apart from the three reasons above there is the fact that a unique Belgian generation has to compete with Argentina, Brazil, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, England… Huge football nations that always have highly skilled players in each generation.
great but lost to a team equally as strong in france and bottled it against an Italy wich they really should have won(Witsel who was allergic to forward passes). One of the few positives out of that 2021tournament is Doku
I feel like you can find the same pattern in some of these national teams. Strong deadly attack, good to decent midfield, and the defense is either not that great or is horrible. Belgium 2018 who dominated the group stage came short due to their defense giving so much space in the box or outside the box for people can take a shot. This can be seen numerous times in the knockout stage of Belgium's run. (Japan's goals despite losing, Brazil's goal despite losing, France's chances in the first half, I don't count umtiti's goal), all show how much space this squad had left for opposition teams can just shoot if they place it right. This big flaw was carried out with them until Euro 2024 when they finally started defending tighter.
genuine question: Could a manager with a very strong personality demand the players drop their personal resentments and play together as a team? Players at press conferences disrespecting their teammates should be punished as an example. Also, as someone outside of Europe, can you explain if there are usually tensions between the two language/ethnic groups of Belgium? And if so, how much that contributed to team lack of cohesion? Great video, very juicy gossip!! Sorry for the fans of Belgium, though.
Throughout much of the 2010s, little ol’ Belgium had arguably the best starting XI in the world. Eden Hazard was ripping it up at Chelsea, Kevin de Bruyne had established himself as Manchester City’s main man, and Romelu Lukaku was well on his way to becoming his country’s all-time top goal scorer. It’s unlikely Belgium will ever have such a talented group of players ever again.
Eh, debatable. There is still alot of talent in Belgium. Young players such as Doku, Openda, De Keteleare, Onana, Vermeeren, Duranville etc... Maybe having another player like Hazard or De Bruyne is gonna be difficult, they were generational talents. But there's definitely players with world class potential.
Its honestly the same thing with the golden age of the english team back in late 90s to early 2000s. People say that they underachieved and should've won everything, but totally forget that they were going up against prime brazil, prime france, prime holland, prime italy and more. Then there were teams like Spain, Germany, Argentina, Portugal and etc that were up there too. Their best bet was 2018 world cup, but at the end of the day, there were more competent teams than Belgium.
Battlefield were so fire in the 2010's that EA did a mashup of Fifa and Battlefield. I never forget my first time I had a go on Battlefield Vincent Kompany
Belgium had the same issues England had in the 2000s, lack of team chemistry, squad depth and big match awareness. It's a shame, they had good players, but at times they looked disjointed. Maybe a new Belgium team with less personal baggage and more team players will emerge in the near future.
The final nail in the golden generation's coffin was definitely after their first match of the 2022 World Cup, the match that made everyone say "wow, they were really lucky to pull out the win against Canada..."
Hazard was their only true maverick, as soon as he fell off, the whole Belgian team fell off. People underrate and downplay Hazard's impact so much. Belgium finished 3rd in WC2018 and Hazard was the second best player in the tournament
Not mentioning Dembele, Mertens, Carrasco etc is pretty weird. Great video as always but I often feel that some players are often left out on favour of more known players in your videos.
Belgium failed because they had to much EPL in their squad. Nations with majority EPL players always fail. Spain and Germanys decline also occurred when more of their players left for the money of the EPL instead of the football of La Liga and Bundesliga
In my opinion, the form of Hazard from 2019-2022 was what created the downfall.He literally was Belgiums best player from 2010-2019. His poor form also impacted the entire teams chemistry and it showed how vital he was
Day 2: Asking for a video about the legendary Juninho (player with the most free kick goals in football history) and his Lyon (the team that won the french league 7 times in a row (something no other French team has achieved).
At least they got third place in World Cup 2018. Better than England 2000s that fail to reach semi final any competitions include fail to qualify in Euro 2008.
Wouldn't say they were a massive failure. But they were a disappointment considering the amount of talent they had. They had promising moments. The 2018 World Cup was where they were at their peak and if they went past France who knows what could have happened.
Belgium is a small state and World Cup bronze is massive achievement in football, except if you are German lol. 😂😂😂😂 When was the last time Italy, England or Brazil had same or better World Cup finish? 🤔🤔🤔🤔 Remember that everyone plays football today. For example Croatia was capable of achieving two consecutive World Cup podiums plus reaching League of Nations final and then barely drew against Albania in group stage of Euro. 🤔🤔🤔🤔 Also "Golden Generation" might not be an adequate metaphor if you believe they failed. After all, their star players earned that star status mostly by performing within their club systems instead of national team, right? They are The Bronze Generation of 2018, about 190 countries in the world would kill to have such medal and there is nothing to be ashamed of. 🍻🍻🍻🍻 Respect from Croatia! 👍👍👍👍
The biggest flaw was having shit managers for most of the time. Especially Wilmots was atrocious. Martinez was more than decent when they were in their prime (2018 world cup against France could have gone either way and we played great football throughout the tournament), but afterwards he kept sticking to his old guard, refusing to make the necessary changes. He's going to make the same mistakes for Portugal because he refuses to drop a 55 or so year old Ronaldo who slows down the whole team.
Nice video but the monotone narration is just too much for me to watch till the end. I checked other videos and I have the feeling i'm stuck in a time loop because of the narration..it goes like nanana nanana nanana...nanana nanana nananana....
Belgium often lacked a leader and it showed. Kompany was injured almost every tournament, and De Bruyne has the leadership skills of a broken crayon🗑 It may not have saved the generation but it woupdve helped. But the non unity was their biggest flaw, one they still havent grown up and snuffed out
Nice video, but just for note, at 12:23 you mention Castagne/Tielemans/Praet, you correctly show Tielemans, but you show Mertens when mentioning Praet, and... is this Castagne ? I can't figure out who this is (the first one) if it's Castagne then it's from a very weird angle haha No idea if the idea was to show them but Praet was clearly wrong here By the way I'm Belgian, and defeat to Wales is clearly the worst defeat of this generation, worst than defeat to France in 2018.
do not put kdb on the thumbnail and call him a failiure for belgium hes the one playing those ball its lakaka that needs to score and courtois for getting kdb's gf like out of every girl you chose her?
If we had one the best teams on paper, we never manage having a really good coach, Martinez was ok I guess but Wilmots was completely incompetent... And overall lack of personality and winning mentality in the grp...
I don't think that's necessarily the case, that Belgium squad (at an individual level) had a very solid and deep squad. They were the 3rd longest to ever be ranked #1 after all
@@RaymarFootball Bro Raymar don't get fooled by the FIFA rankings. They were mostly achieved by farming easy friendlies. France really had more Quality aswell as Player in better form Like Mbappé, Griezmann, Lloris and Umtiti.
I think a huge part of this was Hazard. Great player but lazy so the fact that tournaments occur at a time when Eden would let his hair down from playing football couldnt have helped
Nah, 3rd place in the 2018 World Cup is good enough. Belgium should've done better in Euro 2016 but realistically 2018 was their peak and there is no shame in losing to a French side that was stacked (like 2010 Germany losing to Spain jn that WC)
![Gunna - HIM ALL ALONG [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HiCxoDeo0hc/mqdefault.jpg)
in 2018 Belgium were not the winner but they were the best... That's the sad truth of football
Agreed, crazy how they used a back three & did what they did & on top of that they really took everyone apart in the counter. People brush over how they SMOKED England & Brazil in the counter.
u dream my friend. belgium has easy poule , then only strongest team was france and later they were champion😮. belgium has a good team but can t beat top 5 teams
@@woklam342what are you smoking
If only Courtois never Rizzed Kevin's Girlfriend 😔
😂
😂😂
Feel bad for Belgian football federation, imagine all your investments into a golden generation being ruined by a single player being a massive asshole. Really shows the fine margins in football.
I am not aware of these matters, how did it affect the Belgian national team. Did De Bruyne refuse to play on the same team with Cortouis or what?
@@m7ray they refused to talk, and it made the training and dressing room atmosphere very awkward as they were supposed to be the team leaders (since Kompany was slowly entering retirement).
Having two team leaders who refused to communicate with each other hurts the overall team chemistry a lot.
You even forgot to mention great players like Mertens, Dembele and Carasco 🔥
Real they were all ballers in their prime. I hope Belgium and the Netherlands win a international trophy soon in the future. You have great ball knowledge ngl
Even Thorgan Hazard (Eden Hazard's brother) was also pretty solid.
Doku is the future of Belgium
@@Pangolyn530 fuck Belgium but the Netherlands are long overdue since Argentina robbery in 78
Naingolan! King Radja!
They were unfortunate to come up amoungst other golden generations (Spain early 2010s, Germany mid 2010s, France late 2010s and then Argentina in early 2020).
And Wales in between.
Argentina was not a golden generation, neither was Germany imo.
Spain and France definitely were though.
Argentina isn't a golden generation. They're just a well-oiled machine. (IMHO they're a borderline Champions League side + Messi, whereas France is built like Real Madrid)
Germany isn't either. They were just the most talented team, some of whom are old (Lahm).
@@FragLord most of their players from their golden gen already xhere past it
Argentina is not a Golden generation stop being delusional
The fact that both HITC sevens and raymar made a video about the 2018 Belgium squad just go to show how much potential they had.
Facts!!!
Also Maqwell.
They make videos on subjects that'll get views. You're thinking too much.
@@DimBeam1 can’t it be both?
@@SYKim_94 Could, but its not.
Im sorry but a failure is a gross term to used. For a small country like Belgium their golden generation was incredible, performed better than England's golden generation. They were matched up against other golden generations with much more resources. Although Belgium had a terrific squad, they had weaknesses and a sever lack of depth, something which germany, france etc. never had a problem with. Euro 2016 however I feel they shldve definitely beat wales but other than that, it wasnt a total failure.
Exactly. The entire squad was overhyped by a few good players. Football teams need way more than just the start XI, there's the bench squad, the auxillary squad, the U21s/18s, the management, the committee etc. They all need to work together to win trophies. People never consider how team chemistry, tactics and opposition analysis is done, the game isn't completely played on the pitch, a lot of it is off the pitch, in the training ground and dressing room.
@@spinyslasher6586 Thats.... What Raymar said? "They all need to work together to win trophies". Kind of hard to "work together" when there is serious drama on even the first pick team.
@@johan8969 Raymar never mentions their lack of depth.
@@spinyslasher6586 We only had (too much) depth in midfield. As soon as more than one first choice defender or Lukaku got injured, we were lost. Everybody was laughing at Romelu for missing four open chances in that one half game he played on the 2022 World Cup, but they forgot to mention that 1. It was his first game in months and he was still playing in pain. 2. He helped creating more chances in that half than the rest of Belgium did in the 2.5 games other games. Without Lukaku, we become powerless.
@@Johnnythefirst The fact that Belgium's only hope as a nation aspiring to be atleast top 3 in the world in Lukaku, shows the actual level of Belgium.
No offense to Lukaku, he's a good player in his days, but he's not the guy I'd look to carry a nation in the World Cup on his back.
For me it was having bang average managers which cost Belgium. Although the likes of Spain side early on the German side in 2014 and France after 2016 were superior not just in terms of team work but playing personal. Spain between 08 and 12 probably one if not the best national team ever to play the game.
I mean it's Fa Belgium we talking about
They could have used a Tuchel.
@@earl.c When ? At that golden time Tuchel have a lot of high profile job interested on him
@@mrboast2826 should’ve been clearer i meant someone like tuchel, not necessarily him. that said, for him per se
2016 was the best chance; 1 year at BVB, good reputation, not yet being chased
2018 is a stretch (Bayern and PSG pursued him) 2020- was no longer golden generation
@@earl.c "someone like Tuchel" is such a big Stretch lmao. Where are you going to find some like him?
Failure is a massive reach, even other countries golden generation is just average for the big countries. And besides Hazard, De Bruyne, Cortois, and sometimes Lukaku, you would be hard pressed to call any of the other players genuinely world class
Kompany was world class
@@idk-dz3fo that’s true but he came a little before those 4 and dealt with injuries too
@@idk-dz3fo Too old when other top talent reach their peak...He was world class but he past his prime when like Kevin ,Hazard and other reach best of the best performance
The sad part is now they only have one world class player😢
@@Khanismechy Yeah because the current team is young...There's definitely players with world class potential tho. Give them a few years.
Chemistry played a big part imo. When we beat them in the quarter finals of euro 2016, it felt like we had a team playing against 11 individuals. There’s no way any competent squad of players, especially with the talent of Belgium, should be making Sam Vokes and Hal Robson Kanu look 10x the players they are, against arguably the best squad on paper at Euro 2016. Chemistry is increadibly important. If our squad lacked in chemistry, we would be around the 60s or 70s in fifa world rankings, but because our squad has such a strong identity, we are able to go toe to toe with teams 10x better than us, such as Poland, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands etc. because what we lack in quality, we make up for with our squads chemistry. Gary Speed put a big emphasis on togetherness and squad chemistry, during his stint as manager which has been carried out ever since. Before speed we were 118th, since he’s implemented those values into our squad, we’ve risen as high as 8th, and have been consistantly in the top 30-35 for the past decade.
One of the biggest problems in that match was actually the missing of both Vertonghen (injured) and Vermaelen (expelled) in the same match, which were both prime before their absence. We didn’t have any quality on the bench that could replicate even half of that quality, in both technical and tactical regard. They could also glue the individuals of the team or at least mask the errors from the individuality. I think if the quality of your bench differs that much from your first team, you would need an incredible amount of luck to get to the very final stage of a tournament.
It's not an excuse because on paper we should have still been better, but we had about one decent defender left for that game, and a manager who thought "hoof the ball to hazard" was a tactic.
When you see the chemistry of the Argentine team, Belgian is nothing. Even though Belgian team had much more talent than Argentina team. But Bonding between the players for Messi is heartwarming. This is the reason they won 4 major titles in 4 years.
Argentina's talent is superior, except maybe for defence
@@FedeGeko34 Lol, Belgium's main weak point was their defense. Their fullbacks specifically.
While this is all true: without Messi there would have been no world cup. Not even close.
How are you mentioning fellaini but failed to mention mousa dembele 🤣
Felaini was better than dembele
@@jimmy_butler delete this comment immediately
@@dannyboywoks6002 he was
Bahaha even KdB said mousa is good while never talking about Fellaini.
@@jimmy_butler I am a United fan and I can confirm that Fellaini wasn't even as good as Dembele's right foot
How could Mousa Dembélé not be mentioned among their best talents?He is so underrated
Loved that guy.
He was the reason why we couldn't get forward against France in the semi final
average
The France vs Belgium game could have went either way if we look at the squads for both teams. France had several good players like Paul Pogba, Antoine Griezmann, Raphael Varane, and N'Golo Kante. They had almost won the Euro 2016 with almost the same World Cup squad where they lost to Portugal in the Final at home (it could be a different fate if Cristiano Ronaldo didn't got injured).
2018 was probably the closest this generation ever got to actually win a major trophy.
Descamps terrorist ball stopped the red devils machine lol. While Croatia's team were more cohesive and technically gifted, almost all their k/o games went into extra time and they were very visibly drained by the final. Hazard and Lukaku would have run riot on that tired defense. But all this is merely what if.
terrorist ball aka box to box football😅
@@Iondaime100 Boring, cowardly football. France have had the most quality of any nation by far for the last 6 years, but nine out of ten games they play atrociously. This last Euros painful to see. England has the same problem btW.
When Kompany retired and Hazard became really unfit at the end of the 2010s, that pretty much marked the end of Belgium's golden generation.
Rajda Nainggolan, Dries Mertens, and many others
KDB @ 16:55 is correct here ✅ As much as he was part of Belgium's 🇧🇪 golden generation, the France team that beat then were also generational with Varane, Kante, (an on song Pogba), Griezmann and Mbappe. That game could have went either way.
The problem with the "golden generation " label 🏷️ is that it makes people forget how good OTHER teams are as well. Tournament football comes down to moments and experience because more than one team is realistically capable of winning. Belgium didn't have much (sustained) experience as a top ranked nation and moments didn't go for them. This video also laid out many reasons why the team couldn't win a major trophy 🏆 despite the talent they had. Some of this could be said for England 🏴 too.
Showing Jordan lukaku as batshuyi and origi as benteke is just …. 😂
I would’ve loved to see France v Belgium in the 2018 World Cup final
had so much potential 😢
Bit simplistic in my opinion. I see three main reasons that we never managed to win:
- Age gap: the golden generation defenders and holding midfielders were al born between 85-87 whereas our strikers, playmakers and wingers were born 91-95. This was a huge problem because there was no prior generation to fall back on, resulting in our defenders only playing their first major international tournament at age 28. So we only had 2-3 tournaments to peak.
- Small budget for coaching staff. After Wilmots we needed a top coach with a world class reputation. But we did not have any good Belgian candidates and lacked the budget to get a top tier foreigner. Martinez wasn’t horrible but wasn’t great either. Too mediocre for what we needed.
- The lack of wingbacks or fullbacks. While we had insane depth in central defense, the midfield and even in attack, with substitutes playing for Man United, Tottenham, Roma, Liverpool, Napoli… we only had Meunier as a decent fullback. This resulted in Alderweireld, Vertonghen and even Carrasco playing as fullbacks or wingbacks.
The gossip about KDB and Courtois is not entirely accurate. Courtois was at Atletico and KDB had already broken up with the girl for a while. There was a bit of friction but they talked it through with the coach. Afterwards both players married women that are much more beautiful and became fathers. So it didnt affect the team during the crucial 2016-21 period.
Apart from the three reasons above there is the fact that a unique Belgian generation has to compete with Argentina, Brazil, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, England… Huge football nations that always have highly skilled players in each generation.
What are your thought about Belgium's golden generation?
It is goated
World class players but poor chemistry.
great but lost to a team equally as strong in france and bottled it against an Italy wich they really should have won(Witsel who was allergic to forward passes). One of the few positives out of that 2021tournament is Doku
Bad chem
Good players
(Also if they started loîs openda instead of lakaka)
I feel like you can find the same pattern in some of these national teams. Strong deadly attack, good to decent midfield, and the defense is either not that great or is horrible. Belgium 2018 who dominated the group stage came short due to their defense giving so much space in the box or outside the box for people can take a shot. This can be seen numerous times in the knockout stage of Belgium's run. (Japan's goals despite losing, Brazil's goal despite losing, France's chances in the first half, I don't count umtiti's goal), all show how much space this squad had left for opposition teams can just shoot if they place it right. This big flaw was carried out with them until Euro 2024 when they finally started defending tighter.
genuine question: Could a manager with a very strong personality demand the players drop their personal resentments and play together as a team?
Players at press conferences disrespecting their teammates should be punished as an example.
Also, as someone outside of Europe, can you explain if there are usually tensions between the two language/ethnic groups of Belgium? And if so, how much that contributed to team lack of cohesion?
Great video, very juicy gossip!! Sorry for the fans of Belgium, though.
They had a great run, the 2018 wc was stacked they went pretty far
That's not Batshuayi 😂😂
They even had Mousa Dembélé in the midfield
Most Golden Generations Tend To Fail, Soo.........
Throughout much of the 2010s, little ol’ Belgium had arguably the best starting XI in the world.
Eden Hazard was ripping it up at Chelsea, Kevin de Bruyne had established himself as Manchester City’s main man, and Romelu Lukaku was well on his way to becoming his country’s all-time top goal scorer.
It’s unlikely Belgium will ever have such a talented group of players ever again.
Eh, debatable. There is still alot of talent in Belgium. Young players such as Doku, Openda, De Keteleare, Onana, Vermeeren, Duranville etc...
Maybe having another player like Hazard or De Bruyne is gonna be difficult, they were generational talents. But there's definitely players with world class potential.
belgium now has more talent than ever though
No they don't. Their players are average now
Its honestly the same thing with the golden age of the english team back in late 90s to early 2000s. People say that they underachieved and should've won everything, but totally forget that they were going up against prime brazil, prime france, prime holland, prime italy and more. Then there were teams like Spain, Germany, Argentina, Portugal and etc that were up there too. Their best bet was 2018 world cup, but at the end of the day, there were more competent teams than Belgium.
They didn't qualify for Euro 2000, they were the shared hosts.
Finally someone that's not talking trash about the Belgian national team
I thought you'd mention Dembele in that midfield. Great video❤️
Battlefield were so fire in the 2010's that EA did a mashup of Fifa and Battlefield. I never forget my first time I had a go on Battlefield Vincent Kompany
Belgium had the same issues England had in the 2000s, lack of team chemistry, squad depth and big match awareness. It's a shame, they had good players, but at times they looked disjointed. Maybe a new Belgium team with less personal baggage and more team players will emerge in the near future.
Tbf in the Euros luck was just not on their side.
It was the first time I watch Belgium/Lulakau disappoint and actually be like "fair enough"
Who's Lulakau?
@@spinyslasher6586 thats what I get for typing on my phone smh
The final nail in the golden generation's coffin was definitely after their first match of the 2022 World Cup, the match that made everyone say "wow, they were really lucky to pull out the win against Canada..."
Castagne... shows picture of someone else. Praet... shows picture of Mertens... 🤦♂
I’m like 90% sure that wasn’t Michy in both pictures he showed when talking about beef with lukaku lol
4th point: Martinez as their manager.
And crazy Wilmots.
Hazard was their only true maverick, as soon as he fell off, the whole Belgian team fell off. People underrate and downplay Hazard's impact so much. Belgium finished 3rd in WC2018 and Hazard was the second best player in the tournament
Not mentioning Dembele, Mertens, Carrasco etc is pretty weird. Great video as always but I often feel that some players are often left out on favour of more known players in your videos.
Raymar posts I tap
UR m@m
Belgium failed because they had to much EPL in their squad. Nations with majority EPL players always fail. Spain and Germanys decline also occurred when more of their players left for the money of the EPL instead of the football of La Liga and Bundesliga
In my opinion, the form of Hazard from 2019-2022 was what created the downfall.He literally was Belgiums best player from 2010-2019. His poor form also impacted the entire teams chemistry and it showed how vital he was
I as a Serb must say - If Belguim had mentality like Croatia, they would have won something big, Euros or WC for sure.
Jan Vertonghen is underrated
Very
They also had a habit of hiring terrible mangers for such a talented generation. I mean Wimots, Martinez and now Tedesco?
True. It's as if their budget and judgment is so limited.
15:21 ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?
France had THE BEST Squad coming into the 2018 Tournament and were monumental favourites
Not a single mention of Mousa Dembele...
Why no picture of of mitchy??? Also they gave martinez the team why give that manager their golden generation.
Day 2: Asking for a video about the legendary Juninho (player with the most free kick goals in football history) and his Lyon (the team that won the french league 7 times in a row (something no other French team has achieved).
This is how I feel England may be reflected upon after letting Southgate have (in my view) 2 more tournaments than he really should have been allowed.
Did better at World Cup than Neymar’s Brazil
Please do a story about bafana bafana (south africa) please i watched every vid u ever posted ❤❤❤
its crazy to think this team didnt win anything tbh they were WORLD CLASS almost all of them just a bit unlucky
I dare to say our chances at the 2018 WC would become greater if Naingolan was playing for the national team
Never forgot… this guy did the whisper before Daily did.
At least they got third place in World Cup 2018. Better than England 2000s that fail to reach semi final any competitions include fail to qualify in Euro 2008.
Wouldn't say they were a massive failure. But they were a disappointment considering the amount of talent they had.
They had promising moments. The 2018 World Cup was where they were at their peak and if they went past France who knows what could have happened.
its crime that dembele isnt mentioned
Adnan Januzaj didn't get the golden generation memo
Belgium is a small state and World Cup bronze is massive achievement in football, except if you are German lol.
😂😂😂😂
When was the last time Italy, England or Brazil had same or better World Cup finish?
🤔🤔🤔🤔
Remember that everyone plays football today. For example Croatia was capable of achieving two consecutive World Cup podiums plus reaching League of Nations final and then barely drew against Albania in group stage of Euro.
🤔🤔🤔🤔
Also "Golden Generation" might not be an adequate metaphor if you believe they failed. After all, their star players earned that star status mostly by performing within their club systems instead of national team, right? They are The Bronze Generation of 2018, about 190 countries in the world would kill to have such medal and there is nothing to be ashamed of.
🍻🍻🍻🍻
Respect from Croatia!
👍👍👍👍
I truly believed Belgium was bound to win a World Cup. Shame they couldn't pull it together.
Why did you put a South African flag on v. Kompany
He’s Congolese 🇨🇩, just like Lukaku
The biggest flaw was having shit managers for most of the time. Especially Wilmots was atrocious. Martinez was more than decent when they were in their prime (2018 world cup against France could have gone either way and we played great football throughout the tournament), but afterwards he kept sticking to his old guard, refusing to make the necessary changes. He's going to make the same mistakes for Portugal because he refuses to drop a 55 or so year old Ronaldo who slows down the whole team.
Nice video but the monotone narration is just too much for me to watch till the end. I checked other videos and I have the feeling i'm stuck in a time loop because of the narration..it goes like nanana nanana nanana...nanana nanana nananana....
I wouldnt consider one goal extra time win where opponents gk saved the most shots ever in world cup an easy win.
Belgium often lacked a leader and it showed. Kompany was injured almost every tournament, and De Bruyne has the leadership skills of a broken crayon🗑 It may not have saved the generation but it woupdve helped. But the non unity was their biggest flaw, one they still havent grown up and snuffed out
Kompany is overrated. Vertoghen was better, Aldwerweid too
Nice video, but just for note, at 12:23 you mention Castagne/Tielemans/Praet, you correctly show Tielemans, but you show Mertens when mentioning Praet, and... is this Castagne ? I can't figure out who this is (the first one) if it's Castagne then it's from a very weird angle haha
No idea if the idea was to show them but Praet was clearly wrong here
By the way I'm Belgian, and defeat to Wales is clearly the worst defeat of this generation, worst than defeat to France in 2018.
They did nearly all that was possible aside from win the euro or the world cup. They got third place in the world cup which is legit
You forgot to say that they never had an elite coach.
As a Belgian, I can honestly say this video has a lot of inaccuracies, over exaggerations and is just poorly made
They could have {and should have} done better in the 2021 Euro
There squad was so old at this point
do not put kdb on the thumbnail and call him a failiure for belgium hes the one playing those ball its lakaka that needs to score and courtois for getting kdb's gf like out of every girl you chose her?
If we had one the best teams on paper, we never manage having a really good coach, Martinez was ok I guess but Wilmots was completely incompetent...
And overall lack of personality and winning mentality in the grp...
Kevin was right, Its the same case with The Netherlands and England. Other nations were simply better.
I don't think that's necessarily the case, that Belgium squad (at an individual level) had a very solid and deep squad. They were the 3rd longest to ever be ranked #1 after all
@@RaymarFootball Bro Raymar don't get fooled by the FIFA rankings. They were mostly achieved by farming easy friendlies. France really had more Quality aswell as Player in better form Like Mbappé, Griezmann, Lloris and Umtiti.
Bro cmon... you can't hype Fellaini. That's forbidden.
Seriously, not even worth a mention.
He wasnt that bad. Just because he is memed and flopped at Manu people like you want discredit him.
Fellaini arrived at Standard de Liege at 18...
I think a huge part of this was Hazard. Great player but lazy so the fact that tournaments occur at a time when Eden would let his hair down from playing football couldnt have helped
Fellani, the best chest in football history
That would be Reece James.
If Hazard had stayed fit they may have had a chance at least at winning the euros
Vermalein my fav
Nah, 3rd place in the 2018 World Cup is good enough. Belgium should've done better in Euro 2016 but realistically 2018 was their peak and there is no shame in losing to a French side that was stacked (like 2010 Germany losing to Spain jn that WC)
Reberto Martinez is honestly so bad idk why Portugal has him
Please make a video of Dida ( 7th video)🎉🎉❤❤
Courtois the reason for their downfall
5:39 and 5:40 all−time _highest_ goal scorer
Massive failure?! Were they expected to win against the real giants? The disrespect is a bit much Ray come on now.
At least they won a bronze medal unlike England's golden generation(1998-2010) that won NOTHING😂😂😂😂
I’m from belgium 😅
Lukaka is the best player of all time
Ah they came up against a French golden generation a game early.
Bro forgot dries mertens
3:57. Who the fuck are “Lyle?”
So Castagne=Foket and Praet=Mertens
Belgium > Portugal 🥶
better then neymar yes ,but come on his level is under robben and messi
How you forget dries mertens?
I am sorry but this video is kinda BS injuries was always the problem, belgium played great so chemistry was only a a problem in 2022
When will football youtubers stop beating this dead horse???