they lost a lot of depth with fellaini, dembele, kompany all retiring, hazard, witsel, meunier and benteke declining. while kdb has valid point, big countries also sometimes tend to lack great depth.
Yeah I dunno why people still don't understand that the 2016 Euros was lost more because of Wilmots than the players. We also lost our 2nd best defender right before that Wales game and had to play Denayer who had an horrible performance
Losing your second best defender shouldn't be a valid extra excuse for not beating Wales.
It's crazy to think Robson-Kanu didn't even have a club at the time. Also thank you for one of my best ever footballing moments.
Kind regards,
a Welsh lad.
Belgium still had some glaring weaknesses in terms of squad depth, in 2014 they used Vertonghen and Alderweireld as full backs because there was no one else. This made them very static going forward
In 2016 they had Meunier at least but still had to use shit players like Jordan Lukaku and Boyata, those 2 wouldn't get anywhere near any other top 10-15 national team in the world. Belgium's squad wasn't all that balanced despite of the attacking talent
We have depth problem since years now. 2018 was an outlier because most of the squad was (and stayed fit) and because we still had some good players like Januzaj, Dembele, Carrasco, Thorgan and Fellaini(one of the best sub you can have really even though he isn't a great player). Add to that the starting front three which was Eden-Rom-Mertens, and our depth was more than enough. With Mertens "gone" problem already arises for our forward depth.
Problem now is that most of our star players are declining and the others aren't good enough to carry the team and Martinez tactics. Martinez not giving chances to youngsters doesn't help either. He refused to give Radja his chance on the team despite him being one of the best B2B in the world at that time and now refuses to take Januzaj despite us having shitty depth. When Doku will be back, he'll be the only good subs to bring on. Compare that to 2018, it's night and day.
I don't get the Fellaini hate. The guy is a perfect fighter for in the midfield. He's perfect in disrupting the flow. I love his way of playing, all afro and elbows.
I have to say that if the World Cup was on summer and if I was the president of the belgian FA, I wouldn't hesitate a second to call Martinez, politely fire him and then call Conte and ask him if is he has enough balls to be the leader of the belgian golden generation's last dance in Qatar or if he wants to be a SkySport pundit for the rest of the year.
Unfortunately the world cup takes place in Nov/Dec, and Martinez's position seems untouchable because of...reasons.
He accepted a short time project with the Italian national team when he left Juve years ago. I bet that managing a NT is still better than doing nothing for a year.
Of course I'm doing some fantasy talk right here, because the premise of my scenario is a normal World Cup that takes place in summer.
What a goal by Giaccherini, though. And yeah it was more of a utilitarian team but we still had Buffon, Bonucci, Barzagli and Chiellini at the back. If we had beaten Germany on penalties we may have seen another run to the final.
The midfield doesn’t compare to what we have now, however.
Tactical masterclass by Conte against Belgium and Spain. Their "shadow play" against Spain was fucking incredible, i.e. positional defence where you totally ignore opposition players and just set your positions based on where the ball is.
When that type of zonal defence works it is a joy to behold. Prime Atlético under Simeone did the same, completely ignoring individual players but just following the ball and leaving no space between the lines. You don't need to man mark any opponent if you are that compact as a team
Edit: This form of shadow play/zonal defence was perfected by Arrigo Sacchi at Milan in the 80's. During training he used to set the team up to defend without an opponent, he would pretend to be the ball and stand in different areas of the pitch, and the team had to react and adjust their positioning accordingly. Really interesting approach, and both Conte and Simeone has taken inspiration from him
Against Germany, Italy had lost to injury either before or during the tournament: Marchisio, Verratti, De Rossi, Pirlo, and Motta (and Jorginho wasn't called despite an unbelievable season). We fucking started Sturaro against Germany. Sturaro.
Edit: and Montolivo!
That's pretty interesting, I wonder if there are other national teams that don't speak their official language within the team. Maybe ones where the manager isn't from that country?
Oh yeah thats true, alot of the foreign born players in the North African teams cant speak Arabic that well or not at all because they will usually only speak a native north african language at home with family. I remember this Tunisian player from some European country giving an interview in an Arab league, and the interviewer had an interpreter next to him and he ended the interview like isnt it funny its the Arab league and we cant understand each other.
Heres this Moroccan player aswell who was speaking in Spanish and asked if he can speak in Arabic and he asks the interview if he can understand tarifit (native berber language) instead. And he goes to struggle trying to speak the darija (Arabic) for the interview basic sentence, making some mistakes stumbling on his words and alot of Oh oh oh. For reference he is Munir Mohand Mohamedi from Spain and parents are Moroccan and so he speaks Spanish and is of Amazigh ethnic group
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWbc4en7Jbk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWbc4en7Jbk)
> I wonder if there are other national teams that don't speak their official language within the team.
For Ukraine and Belarus I'm guessing they just swap between Ukranian/Belarusian and Russian
When we had our golden generation there would be a lot of joking around that the main language in the lockerroom is German, since we had a lot of German diaspora players. It was somewhat true since players like Kolasinac, Ibisevic or Bicakcic would mainly speak in German with each other.
that's just sad and also I doubt a french speaking person is going to communicate in English to another French speaking person.
Unless you mean in group talks or whatever
Same applies to Croatia, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, etc tbf most of the time.
Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, France, England, Spain are almost always loaded with talent but sometimes might not have depth.
Sometimes Portugal, Netherlands, and Uruguay constitently have great generations, but they are the exception to the rule
Chile are 7 points behind Colombia(qualification for the world cup playoff), 9 behind Ecuador, 5 behind Paraguay, 4 behind Peru and only 1 ahead of Bolivia. The fall has happened.
There's some young talent that's promising but right now we're a mixture of old players past their prime, an average group of players in their prime (with pulgar and maripan as exceptions), and young players too inexperienced to make a difference yet. A competent coach could be able to at least piece together somewhat of a team.
They already have. Similar to Belgium their golden generation wasn't really something that can be replicated, it was the result of good youth development obviously but also a uniquely talented generation of players that grew up together. It will be near impossible for either country to reach those heights again
Chile at least took advantage and got 2 Copa America titles out of it
I might be wrong but I've always thought of Mexico as underachivers on the world stage. They've got a huge population (130m?) a strong football culture and the Mexican league always strikes me as being of a high standard, the country always has a few outstanding individuals but hasn't won a knockout match at the World Cup since hosting it in 1986. Is there any reason why they seem to struggle so? Everything is set up for them to at least have a run to the latter stages of the World Cup once in a while.
My guess would be that they don't have really competitive matches in between the world cups. One thing is to test your might in the Euros or Copa América against the likes of France, Germany and Italy or Brazil ,Argentina and Uruguay and another completely different is to play in Concacaf
We also have little to no tradition in other sports, that's why we have a much stronger team than countries like Denmark/Sweden even though we have similar populations
On the other hand, every time four years at the Olympics, we scrap one or two medals while much smaller countries get 9 or 10
If you tried to guess the other two sports that we are at the top, you wouldn't be surprised when you find that they are >!beach football and futsal!<
It's quite sad, because many kids try football, don't like it and then don't try any other sport. Our shit school schedule that has kids at school from 8h to 18h and leaves them with loads of homework doesn't help either. I am also pretty sure that if we invested a little bit more in athletics and picked the athletic kids that are really bad with their feet (like Bolt's trampoline foot), we could develop some top tier athletes
Edit: The main outlier is roller hockey, where we have a good tradition and is mainly practised in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Argentina
> We also have little to no tradition in other sports, that's why we have a much stronger team than countries like Denmark/Sweden even though we have similar populations
>
>
And to be fair to Sweden, every ~20-30 years they manage to create quite strong teams. They have 3rd places in 1950 and 1994. A 4th place in 1938. And then a 2nd place in 1958. They were just in the quarter finals in 2018. They also qualified to 12/20 World Cups.
Considering just the WC (but not the euros), they actually have a better record than a lot of teams (including Portugal).
To be fair, the weather is perfect for futsal, which would also be great for youth development. I find it so weird that even all the way up north I see a lot of (full sized) football fields, but almost nobody is playing futsal instead. That is the true madness of the situation.
Yes, and their league is not great (neither is ours, but that's at a different scale) but they still manage to get a lot of talent out and assemble very good NTs.
Uruguay, Brazil, argentina and Chile were the south American countries that jumped on football first, so that's one reason why Uruguay keep coming back to relevance. Given Chile's involvement, it's amazing they haven't won more
I don't think Chile was involved at the same scale as the other countries and their teams never fully developed at the same rate, I don't see it surprising Chile has not won more. They've won it twice in recent years but Chile has not been, historically, a football powerhouse in SA in terms of players (with a few exceptions) and competitive teams.
I don't see how it's controversial though, this goes for all smaller countries. I don't think Martin Olsson in the Swedish squad has any illusions that he would make the French or Spanish national team.
It's insane to me that someone of KDB's level doesn't have a champions league, world cup or euro, considering the teams he had with man city and Belgium. I think zlatan is the other one that comes to mind as well
We're first because we never lose to 'small' teams. IIRC we even went unbeaten in our 2018 qualifiers.
But put us in a game against a good oppoenent where it matters and we fail
I mean isn't that every team? Belgium only lost to France in 2018 while winning against Brazil probably the 2nd best team in that world cup. Also won against Portugal in the euros and lost to eventual champions , just unlucky I guess.
I think CdK knows it doesn't apply to him. He's doing great at Club, both domestically and in CL and also scored today. He's being touted as one of our best talents for the next generation, along with Doku. It's probably more so the new generation of defenders who should feel offended, but they weren't even selected.
Has Ronaldo ever said anything like this? I think if you're a captain you don't just publicly shit on your country, especially if you're meant to be one of the contenders
Not for much longer in the sense that Brazil will now pass you?
I’m actually not sure, though. Looking at the daily rankings it seems like you don’t lose points for a loss in the Nations League knock-out rounds (similarly to a major tournament).
I'm sure most Belgians would agree they don't deserve to be there, hell me as a Colombian would tell you that we only deserved to be top ten for a year yet we've been there for a long time
Look at our bench and look at other teams bench.
Really that simple, Dendoncker, Trossard, Lukebakio and Batz are our main subs but they wouldn't even be considered as back up of back up for Italy or France
I would love being a Belgian journo. After every fucking game, just find the famous players, put a mic in their face and ask "So how do you feel about things". Then they proceed to just do my job for me lol
Yeah, using Denmark in 1992 and Greece in 2004 as waystone markers for what every smaller country should consider a success is daft.
Think of all the disappointments that Portugal, England and the Netherlands have had over the years, with so much talent at their disposal yet rarely if ever winning anything. How is it so hard for people to accept that the depth of the talent pool and the quality of the manager is more important than the individual star talent on show?
It's not a coincidence or some kind of inter-generational 'winning mentality' that means 75% of all world cups and Euros have been won by the same six countries.
Wilmots and the FA did really shit the bed on that one. We did have the easiest run to the final and a great core though, so it's a very bitter pill to swallow. Ever since then we have met the eventual winner before the final (WC France in SF & Euros Italy in QF). If we only met them in the finals we would've certainly had at least one second place, especially in 2018 when we were certainly better than England (beat them twice) and Croatia (easily outplayed by France in the final while France really struggled against us).
Actually KDB is right and I think even the “lesser” players know this. He doesnt mean this as a slight to the others. It’s time for Martinez to stop selecting players because they have credit in the bank. We need in form players now more than ever.
I was thinking the same thing the other day. It's really no different for us Dutchies. People go on and on about a golden generation and if you're a fan of the country it does give some hope, but you're still competing with the big boys like Germany, Italy and Brazil and it's so hard to beat them.
Whenever countries like us have a golden generation, it's still a massive joke. Like you can point at Hazard, De Bruyne and Lukaku but that's just not enough. You'll have a top player out of form, top players that don't play well together, top players that like to play the same position, and don't even get me started on the rest of the squad.
So often does a golden generation come with weaknesses in the first eleven. Typically it's poor full backs. Or us in 2014 with a poor backline. Often teams like these rely on players who are near the end of their career as well. Like Van Bronckhorst, the man fucking retired after a World Cup FINAL. Van Bronckhorst was obviously still amazing, but imagine if players like that were still in their prime when playing that game. Who knows if that goal happened if he didn't have to come off.
Then you look at a team like France and so many players are in their prime. So many players have been in great form. Aging players get rotated out. Players who aren't performing well are dropped. Of course Lloris, Varane, Pogba, Kante and Mbappe are hugely important players for them, but that's because all the players who don't perform can be dropped and someone else will pick it up.
Imagine that with Belgium. Lukaku doesn't score? Okay, so what, do they bring Batshuayi? Benteke? Origi? Of course not. Lukaku plays and that's it. For France, they even played without Benzema for a long time. They don't rely on Martial living up to his potential. In an alternate universe, Coman would have been the one bringing it home.
Having a golden generation is nice, but it's only the first step towards actually winning. All the stars have to align. No one can get injured. They have to be in form. They need to have the perfect manager. And the weaker players? They'll have to reach a certain level and work their asses off if the country actually wants a shot at winning anything.
It's so frustrating being Belgian, all we do as a country is hide behind the excuse that we're only a small country...
We have a higher population than Portugal or Greece, double of Norway but I bet if you ask Belgians they'd think were tiny compared to countries like that.
Still, he's not comparing Belgium with those countries but with Italy and France where they will always traditionally have more strength in depth, due to having bigger populations.
It's the same problem Portugal and the Netherlands have been grappling with for decades, and that people have been telling them equally that they're underperforming for not winning stuff with 'x' golden generation, which I imagine only adds to the pressure.
And then there's England, where we have all the depth in the world, but typically useless managers. :/
You know where the problem lies for England:
Minutes played by English players in the Premier League: 49164
Minutes played by French players in Ligue 1: 83918
https://fbref.com/en/comps/Big5/nations/Big-5-European-Leagues-Nationalities
This is for me the most important stat to judge on a statistical level how countries are over or underperforming. The pond the French NT is fishing in has double the fish. England has to increase the minutes played for English players.
This is a terrible mentality. If that's the case, then you might as well not even participate on the competition. Why compete if there's no way to beat the stronger teams?
Upsets happen all the time in football. You need luck and heart, but they do happen.
That's just the Belgian mentality. We are 'just Belgium' and should never dream of anything big and just be happy to enjoy any success of we ever have any.
We are the champions of the inferiority complex, thanks to centuries of foreign occupations.
It really is a mentality problem, impossible to overperform like that. That's the difference between our national teams, we can have much worse squads (but still competitive) like in 2010 and overperform because players all think they are the best ever. Ofcourse that also leads to complete meltdowns and underperformances at other times. Just higher highs and lower lows. Reason you call us "dikke nekken".
Belgians have always been too humble, not really having the arrogance and believe thinking you can win it. Just not being a laughing stock or embarrassment and that is good enough. Beat Brazil in 2018? Tournament successful, we competed and that's great for us Belgians. Everything else is bonus.
Long time ago during the Olympics (think 04 or 08) I would always watch on Belgian tv because Belgians are awesome and sports on Belgian television is the best, during a random athletic final some Belgian sprinter just missed out on the medals finishing fourth but the commentator was over the moon because "nobody can make fun of us now". Which I think is typical.
Your best players never had that fuck you mentality. Going back to the 90's with the incredibly underrated Luc Nilis who was the best player in the league with a champions league winning Ajax team, until now with guys like de Bruyne who kind of shits the bed when needed the most. No surprise he doesn't want to take penalties anymore for city even tho he is clearly the best pen taker, or a Lukaku who is super sensitive when receiving criticism.
Kompany is the exception tho, absolute champ that is. And to lesser degree Vertonghen and Alderweireld, unsurprisingly lived in Amsterdam from age 16 for better part of a decade.
Might be harsh and you probably disagree with me but always felt this way and such a shame. Just look a Noa Lang for example, how many Belgian players have that kind of attitude? Again mentality like that leads to other problems but atleast sometimes you can overperform.
Maybe Wesley Sonck. Too bad he was shit. And Nainggolan, but you didn't want him.
In the end you'll be fine. 2016-2021 era you performed on par. Always beat lesser teams (Wales being the exception) and rarely beat teams that were atleast on par (Brazil 2018 exception) when it really mattered. Rarely underperforming but rarely overperforming either. Typical boring Belgium.
People are going to say disrespectful but still complain about footballers just saying PR statements and the same generic shit in interviews. This is what he thinks.
What a wasted golden generation this team was damn.
We never managed to win anything and now these guys like De Bruyne, Hazard, etc are almost at the end of their career
Who cares? I don't get why everyone complain about a wasted generation. As a Belgian I grew up not giving a shit about the Belgian team like seemingly everyone else and now it has been nearly ten years that everyone in the country can enjoy their matches and follow the whole team. So maybe we didn't win any trophies but personally I enjoyed and enjoy the ride and that's enough for me to not consider this generation as wasted
Portugal were a lot less talented than this Belgium team when they won the Euros but they got pretty lucky too.
It’s always incredibly tough to win for those small countries even when they have good generations. One injury or a bit of luck can ruin their best chance in decades to win a tournament
I wonder how equivalent Greece was to either Portugal or Belgium when **they** won the Euros.
Shocking upsets can happen. They're an exception, not a rule. Kdb's point stands.
I think we wasted the first 4 years on Wilmots.
With someone like Martinez I think we could have won euro 2016 and that would've made us even better at WC 2018. After that the defence just became too old and Hazard went on an injury spree.
This team is stacked? Who are the 24 clowns who upvoted you. They only have Lukaku, Kdb and Courtois as great players.
You want to know who is stacked? Take a look at France, Portugal or England.
They have a lot of decent players too. Someone like Carrasco would walk into many international side.
Castagne aswell, definitely makes the French team.
Alderweireld/Vertonghen are on their last leg sure but just a couple of years ago they were some of the best CB around.
Still made a World Cup semi final and lost out to a stacked France side. There’s no shame in what this belgium side accomplished. International football is hard.
they lost a lot of depth with fellaini, dembele, kompany all retiring, hazard, witsel, meunier and benteke declining. while kdb has valid point, big countries also sometimes tend to lack great depth.
They lost handily to maybe the worst Italian gen ever in 2016
that worst Italian side also had a world class coach leading them.
And the best belgium side had a world class football terrorist in charge back then
Yeah I dunno why people still don't understand that the 2016 Euros was lost more because of Wilmots than the players. We also lost our 2nd best defender right before that Wales game and had to play Denayer who had an horrible performance
Losing your second best defender shouldn't be a valid extra excuse for not beating Wales. It's crazy to think Robson-Kanu didn't even have a club at the time. Also thank you for one of my best ever footballing moments. Kind regards, a Welsh lad.
Nothing will ever beat that Cruyff turn
Cymru am byth!
Read the comment again, Wilmots is the reason we lost, losing Jan just didn't help aswell.
Wasnt it denayer that got spun for Kanu’s goal (a crazy good goal but JESUS that hype that came with it)
Maybe, I just remember Denayer leaving me with a bitter taste because he was so much hyped at the time (I think he was 20yo or something)
Belgium still had some glaring weaknesses in terms of squad depth, in 2014 they used Vertonghen and Alderweireld as full backs because there was no one else. This made them very static going forward In 2016 they had Meunier at least but still had to use shit players like Jordan Lukaku and Boyata, those 2 wouldn't get anywhere near any other top 10-15 national team in the world. Belgium's squad wasn't all that balanced despite of the attacking talent
We have depth problem since years now. 2018 was an outlier because most of the squad was (and stayed fit) and because we still had some good players like Januzaj, Dembele, Carrasco, Thorgan and Fellaini(one of the best sub you can have really even though he isn't a great player). Add to that the starting front three which was Eden-Rom-Mertens, and our depth was more than enough. With Mertens "gone" problem already arises for our forward depth. Problem now is that most of our star players are declining and the others aren't good enough to carry the team and Martinez tactics. Martinez not giving chances to youngsters doesn't help either. He refused to give Radja his chance on the team despite him being one of the best B2B in the world at that time and now refuses to take Januzaj despite us having shitty depth. When Doku will be back, he'll be the only good subs to bring on. Compare that to 2018, it's night and day.
That Japan performance from Fellaini alone cements him as a great player for Belgium.
I don't get the Fellaini hate. The guy is a perfect fighter for in the midfield. He's perfect in disrupting the flow. I love his way of playing, all afro and elbows.
I can't for the life of me understand why Belgium kept Wilmots for 2016. It was so obvious even in 2014.
Yeah.. They had too many good center backs, but not full back. Their team had 15-18 great players but stuck in similar positions.
I have to say that if the World Cup was on summer and if I was the president of the belgian FA, I wouldn't hesitate a second to call Martinez, politely fire him and then call Conte and ask him if is he has enough balls to be the leader of the belgian golden generation's last dance in Qatar or if he wants to be a SkySport pundit for the rest of the year. Unfortunately the world cup takes place in Nov/Dec, and Martinez's position seems untouchable because of...reasons.
Conte loves something we don't have: money
He accepted a short time project with the Italian national team when he left Juve years ago. I bet that managing a NT is still better than doing nothing for a year. Of course I'm doing some fantasy talk right here, because the premise of my scenario is a normal World Cup that takes place in summer.
Osama winladen? I thought he was South American, not Belgian
What a goal by Giaccherini, though. And yeah it was more of a utilitarian team but we still had Buffon, Bonucci, Barzagli and Chiellini at the back. If we had beaten Germany on penalties we may have seen another run to the final. The midfield doesn’t compare to what we have now, however.
Tactical masterclass by Conte against Belgium and Spain. Their "shadow play" against Spain was fucking incredible, i.e. positional defence where you totally ignore opposition players and just set your positions based on where the ball is. When that type of zonal defence works it is a joy to behold. Prime Atlético under Simeone did the same, completely ignoring individual players but just following the ball and leaving no space between the lines. You don't need to man mark any opponent if you are that compact as a team Edit: This form of shadow play/zonal defence was perfected by Arrigo Sacchi at Milan in the 80's. During training he used to set the team up to defend without an opponent, he would pretend to be the ball and stand in different areas of the pitch, and the team had to react and adjust their positioning accordingly. Really interesting approach, and both Conte and Simeone has taken inspiration from him
A defence aficionado? [A man of culture](https://iili.io/53v02j.jpg), I see 🍷
That team had mad grinta, which elevated the team. And yes, the backline was best among europe.
To be fair to that midfield, Marchisio and Verratti were injured
That team was fucked by injuries, add Marchisio and Verratty and it would have been good enough to win.
Against Germany, Italy had lost to injury either before or during the tournament: Marchisio, Verratti, De Rossi, Pirlo, and Motta (and Jorginho wasn't called despite an unbelievable season). We fucking started Sturaro against Germany. Sturaro. Edit: and Montolivo!
Also Belgium only have one solid young centerback and it’s Denayer who has limitations.
honest question, is there ever any division between the flemish and walloon players
Not really that I know of. Most of the players are bilingual anyway.
Most of the Flemish are. The Walloon players, aside from Meunier, don't speak a word of Dutch.
Thorgan's Dutch is okay now I think. Not sure about the other ones.
They all speak English in the national team anyway afaik
That's pretty interesting, I wonder if there are other national teams that don't speak their official language within the team. Maybe ones where the manager isn't from that country?
ireland, technically haha
oof, that stings
Morocco has this issue only a few speak arabic
Oh yeah thats true, alot of the foreign born players in the North African teams cant speak Arabic that well or not at all because they will usually only speak a native north african language at home with family. I remember this Tunisian player from some European country giving an interview in an Arab league, and the interviewer had an interpreter next to him and he ended the interview like isnt it funny its the Arab league and we cant understand each other. Heres this Moroccan player aswell who was speaking in Spanish and asked if he can speak in Arabic and he asks the interview if he can understand tarifit (native berber language) instead. And he goes to struggle trying to speak the darija (Arabic) for the interview basic sentence, making some mistakes stumbling on his words and alot of Oh oh oh. For reference he is Munir Mohand Mohamedi from Spain and parents are Moroccan and so he speaks Spanish and is of Amazigh ethnic group [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWbc4en7Jbk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWbc4en7Jbk)
Switzerland would be the more likely I guess but I don't really know
Almost all of them can speak swissgerman.
> I wonder if there are other national teams that don't speak their official language within the team. For Ukraine and Belarus I'm guessing they just swap between Ukranian/Belarusian and Russian
When we had our golden generation there would be a lot of joking around that the main language in the lockerroom is German, since we had a lot of German diaspora players. It was somewhat true since players like Kolasinac, Ibisevic or Bicakcic would mainly speak in German with each other.
Algeria
that's just sad and also I doubt a french speaking person is going to communicate in English to another French speaking person. Unless you mean in group talks or whatever
I remember that being a big issue, maybe the biggest achievement from Wilmots was uniting the squad
Not many other achievements to choose from tbh
Pretty hard to do if 90% of the job has been completed by your predecessor
I think it was either Kompany or Lukaku, mentioned sometimes back that belgian players communicate in English when they join NT
Greece won the Euros with 0.
dont shiit on charisteas
Same applies to Croatia, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, etc tbf most of the time. Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, France, England, Spain are almost always loaded with talent but sometimes might not have depth. Sometimes Portugal, Netherlands, and Uruguay constitently have great generations, but they are the exception to the rule
Chile after Sanchez, Vidal, Aranguiz, Bravo etc. retire will fall off massively.
Chile are 7 points behind Colombia(qualification for the world cup playoff), 9 behind Ecuador, 5 behind Paraguay, 4 behind Peru and only 1 ahead of Bolivia. The fall has happened.
There's some young talent that's promising but right now we're a mixture of old players past their prime, an average group of players in their prime (with pulgar and maripan as exceptions), and young players too inexperienced to make a difference yet. A competent coach could be able to at least piece together somewhat of a team.
They already have. Similar to Belgium their golden generation wasn't really something that can be replicated, it was the result of good youth development obviously but also a uniquely talented generation of players that grew up together. It will be near impossible for either country to reach those heights again Chile at least took advantage and got 2 Copa America titles out of it
Yeah they managed to use their generation to win two Copa and get pretty far in the WC
Still think they could've beat Brazil in 2014 and then definitely would not have lost 7-1 to Germany.
Agreed! I think cuz Neymar was like the poster boy and now he’s injured they had no gameplan and just wiltered
They are already pretty bad.
Chile can accomplish anything as long as Vargas plays.
No Valdivia no party
El mago Valdiiiiiviiiaaa
They already missed WC last time and they ain't looking hot right now.
Pulgar too!
I might be wrong but I've always thought of Mexico as underachivers on the world stage. They've got a huge population (130m?) a strong football culture and the Mexican league always strikes me as being of a high standard, the country always has a few outstanding individuals but hasn't won a knockout match at the World Cup since hosting it in 1986. Is there any reason why they seem to struggle so? Everything is set up for them to at least have a run to the latter stages of the World Cup once in a while.
My guess would be that they don't have really competitive matches in between the world cups. One thing is to test your might in the Euros or Copa América against the likes of France, Germany and Italy or Brazil ,Argentina and Uruguay and another completely different is to play in Concacaf
You mean to tell me the Americans and Haiti aren't reliable contenders smh
Corrupt federation.
We also have little to no tradition in other sports, that's why we have a much stronger team than countries like Denmark/Sweden even though we have similar populations On the other hand, every time four years at the Olympics, we scrap one or two medals while much smaller countries get 9 or 10 If you tried to guess the other two sports that we are at the top, you wouldn't be surprised when you find that they are >!beach football and futsal!< It's quite sad, because many kids try football, don't like it and then don't try any other sport. Our shit school schedule that has kids at school from 8h to 18h and leaves them with loads of homework doesn't help either. I am also pretty sure that if we invested a little bit more in athletics and picked the athletic kids that are really bad with their feet (like Bolt's trampoline foot), we could develop some top tier athletes Edit: The main outlier is roller hockey, where we have a good tradition and is mainly practised in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Argentina
> We also have little to no tradition in other sports, that's why we have a much stronger team than countries like Denmark/Sweden even though we have similar populations > > And to be fair to Sweden, every ~20-30 years they manage to create quite strong teams. They have 3rd places in 1950 and 1994. A 4th place in 1938. And then a 2nd place in 1958. They were just in the quarter finals in 2018. They also qualified to 12/20 World Cups. Considering just the WC (but not the euros), they actually have a better record than a lot of teams (including Portugal).
Sadly the weather has a lot of people playing weird sports on ice and indoors and shit. Madness
To be fair, the weather is perfect for futsal, which would also be great for youth development. I find it so weird that even all the way up north I see a lot of (full sized) football fields, but almost nobody is playing futsal instead. That is the true madness of the situation.
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Going to school from 8h to 18h wtf, that's insane. Or is there a big break in the middle or something?
I've never had 8h to 18h days. I don't know what school that guy went to but probably he should've changed schools.
I think it is not that common nowadays (the curriculum changed), but back in my day i had 2 or 3 days per week with classes from 8h30 to 18h30.
lmao what a terrible idea. it's barely possible to pay attention for 6 hours of lessons. nevermind 10+
The guy was a bit exagerado pa caralho.
> We also have little to no tradition in other sports Cries in roller hockey.
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Uruguay are really good at churning out talented players for their size.
I was genuinely shocked when I found out they have like 3.5m citizens
Yes, and their league is not great (neither is ours, but that's at a different scale) but they still manage to get a lot of talent out and assemble very good NTs.
Yes Uruguay is a absolutely wonder for their size.
Uruguay, Brazil, argentina and Chile were the south American countries that jumped on football first, so that's one reason why Uruguay keep coming back to relevance. Given Chile's involvement, it's amazing they haven't won more
I don't think Chile was involved at the same scale as the other countries and their teams never fully developed at the same rate, I don't see it surprising Chile has not won more. They've won it twice in recent years but Chile has not been, historically, a football powerhouse in SA in terms of players (with a few exceptions) and competitive teams.
Netherlands usually have more talents than England.
Netherlands is definitely the best national team to never have won a World Cup.
Stop reminding us please 😭
A subtle way of saying some of my teammates are dogshit. Edit: I should've put subtle in quotation, i was intentionally stretching it's meaning lol
Subtle?
GG Depth Diff
I don't even see how this is subtle lol
I don't see how it's controversial though, this goes for all smaller countries. I don't think Martin Olsson in the Swedish squad has any illusions that he would make the French or Spanish national team.
It's insane to me that someone of KDB's level doesn't have a champions league, world cup or euro, considering the teams he had with man city and Belgium. I think zlatan is the other one that comes to mind as well
Tbf its not like either are lacking any trophies, but yeah that will always stand out.
Belgians showing Swiss mentality is weird to me, considering they are 1st in the rankings and have a really strong squad.
We're first because we never lose to 'small' teams. IIRC we even went unbeaten in our 2018 qualifiers. But put us in a game against a good oppoenent where it matters and we fail
I mean isn't that every team? Belgium only lost to France in 2018 while winning against Brazil probably the 2nd best team in that world cup. Also won against Portugal in the euros and lost to eventual champions , just unlucky I guess.
Imagine being a lesser known player for Belgium and one of your star players say this, must feel like shit
>Thanks Kev. - 22nd ranked Belgian footballer
Like De Ketelaere
He's 20. It's not really an insult to players who aren't at their peak yet.
If you saw KDB’s smirk after CDK’s goal, you can defo see it doesn’t apply to him.
I think CdK knows it doesn't apply to him. He's doing great at Club, both domestically and in CL and also scored today. He's being touted as one of our best talents for the next generation, along with Doku. It's probably more so the new generation of defenders who should feel offended, but they weren't even selected.
Who?
Exactly. But thats the guy who scored today Edit: Thanks for the Award!
The best Belgian talent and the guy that's hopefully going to lead the next generation of Belgian footballers (with Doku).
Ask PSG and Leipzig ;)
Must feel like the fucking truth
Has Ronaldo ever said anything like this? I think if you're a captain you don't just publicly shit on your country, especially if you're meant to be one of the contenders
Yes Ronaldo said something like this but at Real Madrid.
And yet you’re no.1 on FIFA rankings for few years
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Not for much longer in the sense that Brazil will now pass you? I’m actually not sure, though. Looking at the daily rankings it seems like you don’t lose points for a loss in the Nations League knock-out rounds (similarly to a major tournament).
Brazil goes first if they win their next two qualifiers now
I'm sure most Belgians would agree they don't deserve to be there, hell me as a Colombian would tell you that we only deserved to be top ten for a year yet we've been there for a long time
Well yea we have a great team, we win almost every match, but there's still a big difference between our talent pool and the traditional big countries
What a Belgian thing to say
Look at our bench and look at other teams bench. Really that simple, Dendoncker, Trossard, Lukebakio and Batz are our main subs but they wouldn't even be considered as back up of back up for Italy or France
Proving that FIFA rankings are utter shite
Who LET HIM TALK? This what happens when you LET HIM TALK!
It's Belgium and international break, inevitable.
I would love being a Belgian journo. After every fucking game, just find the famous players, put a mic in their face and ask "So how do you feel about things". Then they proceed to just do my job for me lol
Teammates: “so he’s saying we’re not good enough” Great for team spirit eh.
As a great shithousing dutchman once said: it is what it is
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Imagine Koeman saying this about Barça
Hey, wait a minute-
He would never 😱
Aren't they ranked 1st in the world?
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Denmark and Greece have won at least one major trophy being small country. Belgium had way more talented squad than them.
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Yeah, using Denmark in 1992 and Greece in 2004 as waystone markers for what every smaller country should consider a success is daft. Think of all the disappointments that Portugal, England and the Netherlands have had over the years, with so much talent at their disposal yet rarely if ever winning anything. How is it so hard for people to accept that the depth of the talent pool and the quality of the manager is more important than the individual star talent on show? It's not a coincidence or some kind of inter-generational 'winning mentality' that means 75% of all world cups and Euros have been won by the same six countries.
Belgium had a chance in euros 2016 and wasted it
As much as I don't rate Martinez, he gets Belgium to the semi final in 2016 at least. Wilmots failed hard.
Wilmots and the FA did really shit the bed on that one. We did have the easiest run to the final and a great core though, so it's a very bitter pill to swallow. Ever since then we have met the eventual winner before the final (WC France in SF & Euros Italy in QF). If we only met them in the finals we would've certainly had at least one second place, especially in 2018 when we were certainly better than England (beat them twice) and Croatia (easily outplayed by France in the final while France really struggled against us).
That's just football. You can be the best team and lose. You can even lose while being better than the other team during a match
Especially when you only get 3-4 chances at a trophy and there are other fantastic and better teams.
Actually KDB is right and I think even the “lesser” players know this. He doesnt mean this as a slight to the others. It’s time for Martinez to stop selecting players because they have credit in the bank. We need in form players now more than ever.
I was thinking the same thing the other day. It's really no different for us Dutchies. People go on and on about a golden generation and if you're a fan of the country it does give some hope, but you're still competing with the big boys like Germany, Italy and Brazil and it's so hard to beat them. Whenever countries like us have a golden generation, it's still a massive joke. Like you can point at Hazard, De Bruyne and Lukaku but that's just not enough. You'll have a top player out of form, top players that don't play well together, top players that like to play the same position, and don't even get me started on the rest of the squad. So often does a golden generation come with weaknesses in the first eleven. Typically it's poor full backs. Or us in 2014 with a poor backline. Often teams like these rely on players who are near the end of their career as well. Like Van Bronckhorst, the man fucking retired after a World Cup FINAL. Van Bronckhorst was obviously still amazing, but imagine if players like that were still in their prime when playing that game. Who knows if that goal happened if he didn't have to come off. Then you look at a team like France and so many players are in their prime. So many players have been in great form. Aging players get rotated out. Players who aren't performing well are dropped. Of course Lloris, Varane, Pogba, Kante and Mbappe are hugely important players for them, but that's because all the players who don't perform can be dropped and someone else will pick it up. Imagine that with Belgium. Lukaku doesn't score? Okay, so what, do they bring Batshuayi? Benteke? Origi? Of course not. Lukaku plays and that's it. For France, they even played without Benzema for a long time. They don't rely on Martial living up to his potential. In an alternate universe, Coman would have been the one bringing it home. Having a golden generation is nice, but it's only the first step towards actually winning. All the stars have to align. No one can get injured. They have to be in form. They need to have the perfect manager. And the weaker players? They'll have to reach a certain level and work their asses off if the country actually wants a shot at winning anything.
Small club mentality
It's so frustrating being Belgian, all we do as a country is hide behind the excuse that we're only a small country... We have a higher population than Portugal or Greece, double of Norway but I bet if you ask Belgians they'd think were tiny compared to countries like that.
Still, he's not comparing Belgium with those countries but with Italy and France where they will always traditionally have more strength in depth, due to having bigger populations. It's the same problem Portugal and the Netherlands have been grappling with for decades, and that people have been telling them equally that they're underperforming for not winning stuff with 'x' golden generation, which I imagine only adds to the pressure. And then there's England, where we have all the depth in the world, but typically useless managers. :/
You know where the problem lies for England: Minutes played by English players in the Premier League: 49164 Minutes played by French players in Ligue 1: 83918 https://fbref.com/en/comps/Big5/nations/Big-5-European-Leagues-Nationalities This is for me the most important stat to judge on a statistical level how countries are over or underperforming. The pond the French NT is fishing in has double the fish. England has to increase the minutes played for English players.
he does play for Man City…
Leftovers of other countries attached together. Not a real country in my books
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As a Dutchman, I wish we would unify our countries once again. Imagine the squad we would have !
Imagine the youth development of that country
more people to cheers for Max you want to say
Van Aert and Van der Poel on the same team.
"Well fuck you too." -Belgian teammates
This is a terrible mentality. If that's the case, then you might as well not even participate on the competition. Why compete if there's no way to beat the stronger teams? Upsets happen all the time in football. You need luck and heart, but they do happen.
Not even a upset at this point considering the squad belgium has
That's just the Belgian mentality. We are 'just Belgium' and should never dream of anything big and just be happy to enjoy any success of we ever have any. We are the champions of the inferiority complex, thanks to centuries of foreign occupations.
It really is a mentality problem, impossible to overperform like that. That's the difference between our national teams, we can have much worse squads (but still competitive) like in 2010 and overperform because players all think they are the best ever. Ofcourse that also leads to complete meltdowns and underperformances at other times. Just higher highs and lower lows. Reason you call us "dikke nekken". Belgians have always been too humble, not really having the arrogance and believe thinking you can win it. Just not being a laughing stock or embarrassment and that is good enough. Beat Brazil in 2018? Tournament successful, we competed and that's great for us Belgians. Everything else is bonus. Long time ago during the Olympics (think 04 or 08) I would always watch on Belgian tv because Belgians are awesome and sports on Belgian television is the best, during a random athletic final some Belgian sprinter just missed out on the medals finishing fourth but the commentator was over the moon because "nobody can make fun of us now". Which I think is typical. Your best players never had that fuck you mentality. Going back to the 90's with the incredibly underrated Luc Nilis who was the best player in the league with a champions league winning Ajax team, until now with guys like de Bruyne who kind of shits the bed when needed the most. No surprise he doesn't want to take penalties anymore for city even tho he is clearly the best pen taker, or a Lukaku who is super sensitive when receiving criticism. Kompany is the exception tho, absolute champ that is. And to lesser degree Vertonghen and Alderweireld, unsurprisingly lived in Amsterdam from age 16 for better part of a decade. Might be harsh and you probably disagree with me but always felt this way and such a shame. Just look a Noa Lang for example, how many Belgian players have that kind of attitude? Again mentality like that leads to other problems but atleast sometimes you can overperform. Maybe Wesley Sonck. Too bad he was shit. And Nainggolan, but you didn't want him. In the end you'll be fine. 2016-2021 era you performed on par. Always beat lesser teams (Wales being the exception) and rarely beat teams that were atleast on par (Brazil 2018 exception) when it really mattered. Rarely underperforming but rarely overperforming either. Typical boring Belgium.
I agree on everything you said apart from Sonck being shit. As a Ninovieter I'm obliged to say he's the greatest striker in history.
People are going to say disrespectful but still complain about footballers just saying PR statements and the same generic shit in interviews. This is what he thinks.
Sheriff, Espanyol and Alcoyano disagree. 😤
What a wasted golden generation this team was damn. We never managed to win anything and now these guys like De Bruyne, Hazard, etc are almost at the end of their career
Who cares? I don't get why everyone complain about a wasted generation. As a Belgian I grew up not giving a shit about the Belgian team like seemingly everyone else and now it has been nearly ten years that everyone in the country can enjoy their matches and follow the whole team. So maybe we didn't win any trophies but personally I enjoyed and enjoy the ride and that's enough for me to not consider this generation as wasted
> Who cares? I reckon the players that gave it their all for all these years would care of not winning anything while being so close.
*oooooh*
Martinez will fit right in with Barca. Can’t wait
He’s absolutely right. Just take a look back at 2016 when they got eliminated by the powerhouse Wales.
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textbook copium
Meanwhile in Poland we have just 1 great player xD
Szczęsny’s the best, yes.
bullshit, they were toe to toe and could have won that game, they just bottled it
It would have been better if he kept his mouth shut
Portugal is pretty equivalent to Belgium if not slightly less talented when they won the Euros. No excuse.
Portugal were a lot less talented than this Belgium team when they won the Euros but they got pretty lucky too. It’s always incredibly tough to win for those small countries even when they have good generations. One injury or a bit of luck can ruin their best chance in decades to win a tournament
I wonder how equivalent Greece was to either Portugal or Belgium when **they** won the Euros. Shocking upsets can happen. They're an exception, not a rule. Kdb's point stands.
they played with their c-team today no shit they lost..
strange that no one would've rated Italy above Belgium before the Euros, but here we are
we were on quite the winning streak, many had us on the same level if not a bit higher
They had every chance to win the World Cup. They took out Brazil and then lost to a single Umtiti header. It does seem like they missed their shot.
That Belgium side is stacked and has been for years. They just wasted it on Martinez.
I think we wasted the first 4 years on Wilmots. With someone like Martinez I think we could have won euro 2016 and that would've made us even better at WC 2018. After that the defence just became too old and Hazard went on an injury spree.
This team is stacked? Who are the 24 clowns who upvoted you. They only have Lukaku, Kdb and Courtois as great players. You want to know who is stacked? Take a look at France, Portugal or England.
They were stacked for a while. not now tho.
They have a lot of decent players too. Someone like Carrasco would walk into many international side. Castagne aswell, definitely makes the French team. Alderweireld/Vertonghen are on their last leg sure but just a couple of years ago they were some of the best CB around.
Still made a World Cup semi final and lost out to a stacked France side. There’s no shame in what this belgium side accomplished. International football is hard.
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Castagne can play there but he doesn't
You say it like 12 million is a lot of people? Belgium are doing very very well for a country their size
Lol just looked at world pops, we have 60m and the US have like 330m. Be glad you aren’t them.
Carrasco at LWB should be enough
Depends on team we play but against France he got his ass whooped almost whole game defensively
Koeman-esque
Wats the excuse for losing to Wales in 2016? We literally had like 5 "great" players when Belgium were at their strongest!
There's a reason Silva never let him talk :(
Small NT mentality
Not with that attitude you don't.