If the opening match of this season's UEFA Nations League is anything to go by, Belgium's next generation doesn't seem as though it will even come close to the level of its illustrious yet underperforming predecessor. This was underscored by Belgium's tame 2-0 loss at the hands of France. Randal Kolo Muani opened the scoring just before the half-hour mark to put Les Bleus a goal ahead. In the 57th minute, Ousmane Dembélé scored France's second to make the victory safe.
At no point during the course of the match did Belgium seriously appear to even be somewhat likely to win. Despite having the bulk of the possession, Belgium did almost nothing of note with it. It was a generally lacklustre performance that proved that once the previous generation's players have all retired from international play, Belgium will almost certainly slip even further back - perhaps all the way back to the irrelevance they had found themselves in prior to the emergence of the so-called "Golden Generation" who never came close to living up to that moniker.
Just one look at Belgium's roster against France tells the story. Outside of legendary midfielder and captain Kevin De Bruyne, there's absolutely no one who particularly moves the needle in any way. Not even one member of Belgium's squad outside De Bruyne is even on the level of someone like Romelu Lukaku or Axel Witsel, let alone all-time greats like Eden Hazard, Thibaut Courtois, or Vincent Kompany. Belgium weren't even playing against France's strongest starting 11 - Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé started on the bench - and yet were nonetheless taken apart.
At one point, it seemed as though there would be an almost never-ending stream of promising talent coming out of Belgium and that the true impact of the generation before would be to set up Belgium's future by putting the country on the international football map. While they certainly did the latter, it has turned out that the next crop of emerging talent isn't anything particularly impressive to speak of. Against France, the performances of players such as Loïs Openda, Jérémy Doku, and Dodi Lukébakio were all extremely unimpressive to say the least. Indeed, it's not likely that even one of Belgium's current players under the age of 30 would have been able to be a starter had they played in the previous era and been part of the 2018 World Cup squad.
In a post-match interview, De Bruyne lambasted the rest of his teammates as well as head coach Domenico Tedesco's tactical approach. The Manchester City player claimed that the rest of the team showed next to no effort whatsoever - so much so that he tore into them at half-time, though his words then ended up having no effect whatsoever. De Bruyne essentially implied that at this point, most of Belgium's players aren't even taking matches as seriously as they ought to be - a clearly worrying sign for things to come.
De Bruyne also implied that from a tactical standpoint, Tedesco's approach is costing them potential wins by stripping the team of all cohesion, leaving a disconnect between defense and attack. While all of this may seem excessive at first, it has to be kept in mind that these are the frustrations of a decade finally surfacing all at once - first with the previous generation's underachievement when they ought to have been perennial title contenders and now with the current squad having fallen off as far as they had.
In spite of their failure to step up on the biggest stages, Belgium did at the very least have a capable squad for the best part of a decade. This doesn't appear to be the case anymore - they look disjointed, discombobulated, and outright unimpressive. It's safe to say that Belgium's new generation doesn't offer any hope that they'll be back at the top table of international football any time soon.
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