Are Belgium the next big thing in International Football?

KM

I’m afraid I just blue myself
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With talents like Romelu Lukaku, Eden Hazard, El Ghanassy, Boyata, Mignolet coming up in addition to the likes Vermealen, Vertonghen, Kompany, Fellaini and Dembele, they already have a very good set of players which will only get better in future. Euro 2012 is maybe too early for them, but I think in the next three-four years they could be a major contender for the Euro and WC's.

However they really need to have better fullbacks and goalkeepers for them to become a major contender(Mignolet is promising, but not that good based on the matches I've seen him play for Sunderland)
 
KM said:
Their Fullbacks and Goalkeepers are their main weakness as of now.
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We have De Laet and Vermijl. Depends if they turn out to be good. Also Mignolet seems to be decent as a goalkeeper.
 
Don't you mean the future United team of the Flemish Republic and Walloon Kingdom?

Then again you'll have Barcelona dominating the Catalonia Liga against Espanyol, in 30 years.:lol:
 
Always divisions in the Belguim squad. Not sure if it's a Walloon/Flemish thing or not but they are always undermining themselves with in-squad bickering.
 
Recently this is the worst they have ever been, a few years ago they were permanent fixtures in the World Cup and Euro's too

Think they have the unfortunate honour of being the 1st host nation of either comp to be eliminated in the group stages. All downhill since then.

But yes future looks bright
 
Sam.G said:
Always divisions in the Belguim squad. Not sure if it's a Walloon/Flemish thing or not but they are always undermining themselves with in-squad bickering.
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That's what they say about the Dutch.

It's probably true but hasn't stopped them becoming a force in international football.
 
Silva said:
This is Belgium we're talking about, the Germans will come up to something to outdo them.
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Judging by their performance in the recent World Cup with also a relatively young team it looks like they already have.

Some good footballers on that list though, if they manage to click & get a decent manager they could be a force to be reckoned with alright.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That's what they say about the Dutch.

It's probably true but hasn't stopped them becoming a force in international football.
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Yeah, maybe Belguim have simply had shit players.

But looking at that current crop, they must qualify for something soon. A lot of hype surrounding a number of those players.
 
There is certainly a lot of talent there, I still remember the days of Enzo Schifo. :drool:

Ole's_toe_poke said:
We have De Laet and Vermijl. Depends if they turn out to be good. Also Mignolet seems to be decent as a goalkeeper.
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Has he played for the reserves yet?

Sam.G said:
Always divisions in the Belguim squad. Not sure if it's a Walloon/Flemish thing or not but they are always undermining themselves with in-squad bickering.
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I read an article a while back that said Defour had been instrumental in trying to bring everyone together.
 
Despite all this talent they have they have managed to reach an all time low and are down there in the rankings with the likes of Scotland.
 
They need a manager who can lead a team like that. Leading such a youthful team takes a lot of talent and I just don't see them doing that under their current leadership....
 
There are some other great talents as well which haven't been mentioned here. Dries Mertens is doing great for Utrecht, Chadli is doing great and fortunately seems to be choosing Belgium over Morocco and Kevin De Bruyne is already linked to all sorts of European top clubs.

So there's quite some talent in the squad, but also a lot of inexperience and naivety. The games against Austria and against Finland today prove that. In both games they were winning in the last minutes of the game but still managed to give it away in added time.
Central defense, central midfield, wings and strikers are quite good already, but the fullbacks are a problem indeed. Usually Leekens places some central defenders who can also play there (Vermaelen, Vertonghen, Ciman, Lombaerts,...) instead of natural fullbacks.

I don't think there's a Flemish-Walloon problem in the squad. There have been some problems in the team, but that was more to do with a generation conflict than a conflict between the two communities in Belgium. Some of the 'older' troublemakers (mainly goalkeeper Stijn Stijnen) have been removed from the national side and the atmosphere is apparently getting better and better.

Euro 2012 will be a bit tricky. Because of the draw with Austria, the table doesn't look too good. Fortunately, Turkey lost in Azerbeijdjan. If they win in Austria, against Azerbeidjan and beat Turkey at home they have a chance to qualify.

The main problem is that our FIFA ranking is so low that we're in the third or even fourth pot for European Qual draws. In our group at the moment, we have Germany, Turkey and Austria (which also have a talented generation). It's not easy to end top 2 in such a group.
 
Devil may care said:
There is certainly a lot of talent there, I still remember the days of Enzo Schifo. :drool:



Has he played for the reserves yet?
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Yes he did. Scored twice on his debut I seem to remember.

He also played for the U21 Belgium squad this week. They beat Belarus I think 0-1 with Thorgan Hazard (Eden's brother) scoring the goal.
 
Nacer Chadli is a fantastic prospect

it's just incredible how many good young players Belgium has coming through..
 
King_Eric said:
Yes he did. Scored twice on his debut I seem to remember.

He also played for the U21 Belgium squad this week. They beat Belarus I think 0-1 with Thorgan Hazard (Eden's brother) scoring the goal.
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Do you know in which position?
 
Elliott said:
Do you know in which position?
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No, I'm not sure. Based on the position of his name in the line-up it seems to be rightback. That was for the last two games he started.

He also seemt to have been brought in as a substitute on midfield in two other games.

It was the U19 rather than the U21 by the way.
 
It seems I missed out the likes of Witsel, De Bruyne, Courtois(Goalkeeper) who have all been linked with moves to top clubs in the last month or so.

They could be the next force in International Footie, some excellent talent coming up there.
 
Been saying this for a while now... Belgium are the team to look out for, and I can't wait to see them start hitting their straps.
 
I don't think the OP was suggesting they'll win the World Cup, but certainly they could be a strong side.

It could be another "golden generation" that they haven't had since the 80's. They had some brilliant players at Euro '80, plus '82 and '86 World Cups. The likes of Pfaff, Van der Elst, Scifo, Clijsters, Cuellemans.

Many of the list in the OP are just prospects at this stage, but they certainly have some talented players to go with the experience that already plays regularly. It's something I've thought of and would be nice to see them do well.
 
We're playing Turkey on fridaynight. It's been a while since everyone has been so excited about our national team. It was sold out after 3 days which is quite impressive, because we rarely have sold out crowds. And when we play Turkey, the stadium is usually filled with Turkish fans.. Now however, the Belgian FA only made tickets available in the first month of the sale for fans that had been to previous matches of Belgium in this EC campaign. After three days, all tickets were gone. Luckily, I went to a friendly against Finland in February, so I was able to get a ticket.

I'll do some scouting ;)
 
Cristiano_RAFC said:
We're playing Turkey on fridaynight. It's been a while since everyone has been so excited about our national team. It was sold out after 3 days which is quite impressive, because we rarely have sold out crowds. And when we play Turkey, the stadium is usually filled with Turkish fans.. Now however, the Belgian FA only made tickets available in the first month of the sale for fans that had been to previous matches of Belgium in this EC campaign. After three days, all tickets were gone. Luckily, I went to a friendly against Finland in February, so I was able to get a ticket.

I'll do some scouting ;)
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Hope you do win mate, there's some serious talent out there, would be a shame if your team doesn't qualify. Btw out of Interest what is going to be your starting line(most probably).

I heard that Hazard hasn't been picked regularly for Belgium, any particular reason for that?
 
KM said:
Hope you do win mate, there's some serious talent out there, would be a shame if your team doesn't qualify. Btw out of Interest what is going to be your starting line(most probably).

I heard that Hazard hasn't been picked regularly for Belgium, any particular reason for that?
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Starting line up will most likely be this:

GK: Mignolet
D: Alderweireld - Kompany - Van Buyten - Vertonghen
M: Simons - Witsel - Defour
A: Hazard - Lukaku - Chadli

Hazard wasn't in the starting line-up in the last 2 games because the manager said he needed more power against Austria. Belgium are blessed with many good wingers at the moment (Dembele, Chadli, Hazard, Mertens, Legear, De Bruyne) and Leekens chose Dembele and Chadli (who was on topform at the time) because they are the most fysical of the lot. There was also some talk about Hazard needing to improve his tracking back and I suppose that's an area where he can improve. It's a bit like SAF choosing Park and Valencia over Nani.

For the game against Turkey, Dembele is injured, so it's very likely Hazard will start. Fellaini is injured as well, so he's not playing and Vermaelen just got back in the Arsenal team, so he misses match fitness and it's unlikely that he'll start for that reason.
 
Looking forward to the match. Been a long time since there has been something to cheer about for us. :D
 
The new Czech Rep.
 
Ole's_toe_poke said:
We have De Laet and Vermijl. Depends if they turn out to be good. Also Mignolet seems to be decent as a goalkeeper.
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Are you Belgian?

Do you know anything about Kevin De Bruyne from Genk? Chelsea keep getting linked with him, I was wondering if he was any good.
 
Cristiano_RAFC said:
Starting line up will most likely be this:

GK: Mignolet
D: Alderweireld - Kompany - Van Buyten - Vertonghen
M: Simons - Witsel - Defour
A: Hazard - Lukaku - Chadli

Hazard wasn't in the starting line-up in the last 2 games because the manager said he needed more power against Austria. Belgium are blessed with many good wingers at the moment (Dembele, Chadli, Hazard, Mertens, Legear, De Bruyne) and Leekens chose Dembele and Chadli (who was on topform at the time) because they are the most fysical of the lot. There was also some talk about Hazard needing to improve his tracking back and I suppose that's an area where he can improve. It's a bit like SAF choosing Park and Valencia over Nani.

For the game against Turkey, Dembele is injured, so it's very likely Hazard will start. Fellaini is injured as well, so he's not playing and Vermaelen just got back in the Arsenal team, so he misses match fitness and it's unlikely that he'll start for that reason.
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Vermaelen is the captain is he not? He'll replace Van Buyten surely, he's on his last legs anyway.

(I mean in the future, once everyone is fully fit)
 
Took me three (FM) years but finally managed to get this squad for my QPR team on FM:

GK's:
Mignolet
Courtois

Defender's:
Van Buyten
Kompany
Vermaelean
Vertonghen
Alderweireld
Boyata
De Laet

Midfielder's:
Defour
Fellaini
Witsel
De Bruyne

Wingers:
Hazard
Chadli
El Ghanassy

Strikers
Lukaku
Dembele
Vossen
 
Can definitely see why you put this in the Belgium thread, and not the FM thread...fascinating stuff.

Anyway back to Beligum, look unlikely to qualify for the Euro's which is a shame. Was looking forward to seeing them to be honest. 2 points behind Turkey with these fixtures:

Turkey
Germany (H)
Azerbaijan (H)

Belgium
Kazahkstan (H)
Germany (A)

Not impossible but you'd definitely give Turkey the edge. If Belgium beat Kazakhstan and get the draw against Germany then they could very well do it, but they're still relying on Turkey to lose against Germany despite their good home record. And Germany look pretty unstoppable at the moment, so even if they do beat Turkey they'll probably beat Belgium too.
 
Brwned said:
Anyway back to Beligum, look unlikely to qualify for the Euro's which is a shame. Was looking forward to seeing them to be honest.
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Me too, shame.

I expect Turkey to take four points minimum, although if any of the two that aren't Germany are going to cause a problem, it's more like Azerbaijan than Kazakhstan.

But the trip to Germany will be too much of stumbling block.
 
Hazard behind Lukaku will be a frightening up front combination in a few years.
 
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