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Belgium out to justify the hype at Euro 2016

By on June 4, 2016

Few teams at Euro 2016 can match Belgium player-for-player but can their golden generation finally rise to the occasion?

Belgium’s “Golden Generation” is so highly vaunted for good reason.  Their Euro 2016 squad contains eleven Premier League players, more than any other team outside of the home nations, and is filled with potential game changers: Thibaut Courtois in goal (with no less than Simon Mignolet as backup); Toby Alderweireld, Thomas Vermaelen, and Jan Vertonghen at the back; Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard, Axel Witsel, Yannick Carrasco, Mousa Dembele, Marouane Fellaini and Radja Nainggolan in the midfield; and Christian Benteke, Romelu Lukaku, Divock Origi and Dries Mertens up front.

They’re the highest European nation in FIFA’s World Rankings heading into this summer’s European Championships, sitting in second behind Argentina. And yet there’s a sense that their ranking is unjustified largely down to the fact that they have never had a major impact on any international tournament.

A quarterfinal finish at the 2014 World Cup was hardly disgraceful but the Red Devils, having beaten Algeria, Russia, and South Korea in the group stages and narrowly scraped past the United States in the Round of 16, fell to Argentina in their first big test.  More than anything else, the tournament proved that Belgium still had a distance to go before they could truly challenge the best in the world.

Manager Marc Wilmots, in an interview with FIFA at the end of the tournament year, outlined the problem that has been biting at Belgium ever since the emergence of their golden generation “Give me 11 talented players and I won’t be able to get the job done. Give me a well-functioning team and I will, especially with players on the bench who think the same way. If we have a whole squad which still thinks like that, we’ll be able to get results, but if the players only think about ourselves and their talent… talent alone is not enough. You need hard work and professionalism to go with that. You have to really know every detail of your profession. And then there’s experience, which takes time. This generation has that, and will have it for another seven or eight years.”

“Give me 11 talented players and I won’t be able to get the job done,” he said.  “Give me a well-functioning team and I will, especially with players on the bench who think the same way. If we have a whole squad which still thinks like that, we’ll be able to get results, but if the players only think about ourselves and their talent… talent alone is not enough. You need hard work and professionalism to go with that. You have to really know every detail of your profession. And then there’s experience, which takes time. This generation has that, and will have it for another seven or eight years.”

They have added key elements to their World Cup squad, like Carrasco and Nainggolan and trimmed around the edges as well, but they’re still working on the cohesion within the team.  Although Euro qualifying went by without any major hitches, Belgium being in a forgiving Group B alongside Wales, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Israel, Cyprus, and Andorra, they didn’t exactly dominate in the manner that their FIFA Ranking would have suggested.

The FIFA Rankings tend to become very skewed in between World Cups and while Belgium’s high ranking is no mistake, they need to move that they can perform on the big stage to justify all the hype.

Even a semifinal berth this summer would leave a lasting positive effect on the country and give them room to grow at the 2018 World Cup.

This is by no means the last role of the dice for golden generation, they’re still the fourth youngest in the tournament and, in theory, should be peaking as a team at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, but this may be their best shot at winning a major tournament and it is unlikely that Wilmots will survive another wasted chance for Belgium to finally prove themselves on the biggest stage.

The forty-seven-year-old manager has grown up with the golden generation, having been an assistant manager for the national team between 2009 and 2012 before taking the reins from Georges Leekens in the aftermath of their catastrophic Euro 2012 Qualifying campaign.  It’s hard to tell definitely, though, whether their recent growth is because or in spite of him and a failed Euro 2016 campaign would unbalance the scales in the wrong direction.

He’s too often tried to stuff their top eleven players into the same lineup, seemingly putting team chemistry in the backseat.  An excellent example of this is his recent center-back conundrums.  Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld have formed a sturdy partnership together at the heart of Tottenham Hotspur’s defense but because of Belgium’s lack of full-backs, Wilmots was awkwardly positioning the two players out wide and playing Vincent Kompany and Nicolas Lombaerts through the middle.  Defensively it didn’t hurt too much but was a real Achilles heel of theirs when trying to possess the ball and play high up the pitch.

Even with Kompany and Lombaerts injured, Wilmots persisted with that logic, playing Jason Denayer and Thomas Vermaelen through the middle in a recent friendly draw against Finland.

There are signs, though, that Wilmots might sort it all out in time for the Euros and he is expected to put Vertonghen and Alderweireld back into the middle for Sunday’s friendly against Norway in Brussels.

That said, it’s just one piece of the puzzle as Wilmots looks to form a talented squad into a highly effective unit to eat their high expectations at Euro 2016.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.