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Belgium’s 1-0 loss to Slovakia on Monday was statistically the biggest upset in the 64 years of the European Championships, with the world’s third-ranked team succumbing to the team ranked 48th.
Only in the cold world of FIFA’s rankings matrix, devoid of emotion or context, could this event have felt so significant.
Belgium’s lofty status doesn’t correlate well with the current state of a team that is still rebuilding from a disastrous 2022 World Cup defeat and enduring the growing pains that come with a generational change.
This is not something you can compare to the 2014 or 2018 Belgian teams.
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Ten years ago Brazil had a back four of Jan Vertonghen, Thomas Vermaelen, Vincent Kompany and Toby Alderweireld, all four centre-backs at an elite level and using them as a flat back four would have been perfect for today’s football, where a flat back four is emerging as a new trend.
This week in Germany, they fielded a right flank of Timothy Castagne and Wout Faes (the two defenders were relegated from the Premier League with Leicester City exactly one year ago) and a left flank featuring Zeno Debasto, 20, from Anderlecht, and Yannick Carrasco, a 30-year-old winger who now plays for Al Shabab in Saudi Arabia. Carrasco is known for his adaptability but has never been seriously considered as a right-footed left-back.
Belgium still have a wealth of talent up front, but in 2018 the favoured trio of Eden Hazard, Kevin de Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku were arguably the best trio in international football.
With Hazard retired and De Bruyne still one of the best creators in the world, but like Lukaku, he is over 30 and has struggled with injuries in recent years, the team needs to adapt to players’ strengths and physical limitations.
Coach Domenico Tedesco tried to achieve this against Slovakia by employing an asymmetric shape when not in possession, pushing Carrasco higher up on the left wing and dropping Jeremy Doku into a right wing-back role to form a 3-4-3 shape.
This allowed Leandro Trossard to push forward and lead the press, sharing the workload with the team’s two ageing superstars.
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Belgium didn’t play badly – Slovakia’s goal was a self-inflicted one, a misplaced pass from Orel Mangala – but Tedesco’s side were the better team, creating chances consistently for over an hour.
Despite only scoring one goal against Qatar, their team looked extremely energised and, crucially, De Bruyne was incisive and showed plenty of superiority in dominating Slovakia.
The problem came in the final ball and finishing, with Lukaku having two shots denied by VAR and also guilty of missing several clear-cut chances.
Vertonghen sought to keep emotions under control and provide perspective ahead of the first of two crucial matches, against Romania tomorrow and Ukraine next Wednesday.
“We deserved to win,” he said. “Three years ago against Italy at the Euros we were outplayed and had no chances. That’s not the case anymore. We had chances but two goals were disallowed. There are still two games left and we will manage to qualify. We will get there. We didn’t concede many goals against Slovakia but we just didn’t take our chances.”
“I’m 100% sure (about our progress). At the World Cup in Qatar we were physically overpowered by Canada, but that’s not the case now. After the game against Morocco there were more doubts than there are now.”
De Bruyne was the last player to arrive at Tedesco’s squad meeting point after the defeat to Slovakia and he apologised to the fans, but they now have two games to play to avoid a repeat of their group stage exit against Qatar.
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His mindset was different two years ago, when the team struggled to pull off a 1-0 victory in their opening game against Canada.
“No way, we’re too old,” he said during the World Cup when asked if this would be a glory year for his fading golden generation.
“I think 2018 was our chance. We have a good team, but we’re aging. We’ve lost some key players. We have some new, good players coming in, but they’re not at the level of the other players we had in 2018. I think we’re more of an outsider.”
The next day, during a 2-0 defeat by Morocco, Vertonghen openly criticised his teammates’ pessimism: “I think the reason we’re not good at attacking is because our front line is too old,” he said.
A defeat soon afterwards highlighted tensions among some of the more senior members of the team, but Tedesco’s bold squad selections eliminated much of this side machinations.
They remain the fifth-most capped team at Euro 2024, but while six of the top seven are still active players, only De Bruyne and Lukaku featured in the opening game.
Thibaut Courtois has been left out of the national team entirely after a public falling out with coach Tedesco, as have Alderweireld, 35, and Dries Mertens, 37. The former Tottenham Hotspur defender made history by leading Royal Antwerp to their first league title in 66 years, and the former Napoli goalkeeper had the most assists in the league with 18 to lead Galatasaray to a Turkish record for points.
Toby Alderweireld was one of the players who endured the pain of elimination from the 2022 World Cup (David S. Bustamante/Socrates/Getty Images)
Tedesco is ushering in a new era but it’s telling that after just one game there is already talk about whether the 37-year-old Vertonghen and 35-year-old midfielder Axel Witsel, who came out of retirement to play at centre-back for this tournament, will be deployed at the heart of the defence.
This doesn’t feel like a team on the brink of soap opera, but it also doesn’t feel like an up-and-coming team poised to become European champions.
(Top photo: Ryan Pearce – UEFA via Getty Images)