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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
@@DimBeam1 I once read a statistic about him that during his 6 and a half seasons with Tottenham, he only lost the ball 13 times. He is always praised by high-level players such as Rudiger and Walker
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.
It was over when Benteke got injured, and Lukaku had to take his place. Lukaku is useless with his back to the opponent's goal, he doesn't feel the defenders in his back.
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.
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).
I think they reached their full potential. They were at the peak of their powers around the 2018 world cup and the subsequent euro. They made 3rd place there and quarterfinals eliminated in a close game by Italy who were champions. They went as far as they could. They faced better teams who were the winners. Period. They weren't a failure, they produced all they could and did fairly well playing amazing football and staying 1st many years.
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
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.
This team was so much fun to watch, they went to Fifa ranking 1, yes, not a big prize, but what a joy, so happy and proud to have been able to witness that for a country of 12 million people. And everybody wanted to watch the Belgians, they made us proud, yes, they did
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..."
Their number one spot is testament to their consistency: for a long time they rarely if ever failed to get a result against weaker sides on paper. Against teams that were around their level on paper, the margins were much finer and form, injuries, internal conflict, mangerial limitations, lack of depth in certain positions, all become much more relevant. For the most part the team performed as expected. Football is a fairly chaotic game when it comes to the moments that define matches, and all in all I can't think of many games in which the team was outplayed in a way that didn't give them a chance to get a result had one or two moments had gone the other way. So that's another way you can interpret "chaotic failure."
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.
As a Dutchman there were times i was impressed by the Red Devils squad and they truly could make history but it was indeed the lack of chemistry. But this video showing much more what happened outside the fields tells me more now. It kinda reminds me that these things also happened in the past at the Dutch national anthem which costed us great opportunities to perform or even a trophy. For example in the 70s when dutch football was in their prime with Total football, Ajax and Feyenoord were winning Champions Leagues and in the national team they were doing great with players like Cruijff, Neeskens and Van Hanegem. But there was also a great generation of PSV with players like Van Der Kuijlen (all time topscorer eredivisie) and goalkeeper Van Beveren. But first names were treated like Kings and got a higher salary because of their status, while from 1974 on, PSV would become dominant in the Netherlands. Arguments about calling names and not equal salary resulting in not passing the ball to PSV players and suddenly stepping out of the national team. Coaches unfortunately choose sides instead of doing something for both sides. Who knows we could have won the world cup in 1974 if the PSV players were the missing pieces of great 70s generation... 1978 was different because the world cup took place in a filthy dictatorship. Last example was between 1988 and 1990 (world cup Italy). The Netherlands won the euros and we were hoping they could perform the same way on the world cup. But when coach Michels left, the team wanted a new coach and they decided to choose between three coaches (including Cruijff, which was the favourite after voting) but they got someone else and the players were disappointed. Also the chemistry was not there because everyone felt like the star of the team and they should be the best on the field to bring the world cup, a so called patat-generatie (Chips-generation). Result; 3 draws in the group stage, knock out from West Germany in the last 16, with the Spit-incident. Last time we had a crisis was after the world cup 2014, but that was more about the continuously switching between coaches and staff. But we missed qualification to 2016, 2018 for sure because of that and some skilled players retarded. While Belgium was doing great! Conclusion, it might be more of a low country thing. Where big countries like Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, Argentina could succeed or overcome. Smaller countries like Belgium and the Netherlands are highly fragile to greed, rivalry and weakness.
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
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.
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.
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).
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....
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
One of the biggest factors not mentioned in this video is Roberto Martinez and his awful tactics Roberto Martinez's agent needs a pay rise. The fact that Roberto Martinez somehow always fails upwards in his career puzzles everyone.
Coming from a Croatian myself, they were much better side and all they did was finishing 3rd at the world cup what Croatia managed to achieve at two back to back world cups... its clear that they lacked chemistry and a bit of luck, what Croatia had in the end
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.
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.
Ok, as a Belgian... about 90 percent of the "terrible chemistry" was like not covered by Belgian media, or it must of been low key, i only about courtois shagging his girlfriend, all the rest i didnt know, from the returning apart to the feuds, nothing, this is worse then what happened with the french team in south africa and it was kept under the cutee... amazing
Chemistry was always the problem, not good enough coaches and leaving Naingolan out who in his prime was ridic underrated…..2018 was their year. Knocked out by a corner kick goal. Best line up …………………..Lukaku ……..Hazard………………..Mertens ………………………Debryne ………….Naingolan…Wittsel …Vert……Kopany…Alder…Munier Attack in 4-2-1-3 and defend in a 4-3-3 Debryne dropping to the right
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)
Euro 2016 was their best chance to win a trophy. WC 2014 was too early, WC 2018 coincided with France’s golden generation and their average coach would’ve probably sold the match against Croatia if they made the final. Euro 2020 and WC 2022 shouldn’t even be considered, players were too old
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! 👍👍👍👍
Judging a teams quality based on a single elimination tournament is the most ridiculous thing that international football fans do. Any scientist would throw international football out entirely for the sample size being too small, but people take it as definitive gospel. We all know that even the when the best team goes up against against the worst in the tournament still only wins 80% of the time. Someone rolls that 20% and suddenly they're "disappointing." Just like a team winning several times over a short period and being called a "dynasty." Both are neither factually accurate nor reasonable metrics to judge with.
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.
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
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
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?
I dont know, we have to be honest Mbappe was fire in 2018, he ripped up any defence including ours, and i still dont get why Nainangolan was left home, in my opinion it was personal and nothing to do with sports, we would of been world champions or at least would of had a fighting chance. But lets move on, france did it back to back to the final, so that tells you something.too. We had our shot, we fracked it up for various reasons. it happens. It took years of consecutive golden generations before the Spaniard had it, and Portugal didnt get it with Luiz Figo and his golden generation and neither Ronaldo, it happens.
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.
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...
