With the transfer window approaching and the spotlight focusing firmly on Romelu Lukaku, people are asking what’s happening in Belgium. Why is a country that has had no recent success at the national and with a league that suffers from low budgets and poor stadiums suddenly producing a bunch of good players?
The conveyor belt is certainly impressive: Thomas Vermaelen, Moussa Démbéle, Vincent Kompany, Marouane Fellaini, Eden Hazard, Steven Defour, Axel Witsel, Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen, not to mention 17 year-old Romelu Lukaku himself.
The answer, sadly, is that there is no Belgian blueprint. The Jupiler league is in a mess and the clubs are currently fighting about how the newly reformed league should be reformed; the ‘big 4’ are trying to maximise the fairly low – by European standards – TV rights, the little clubs want to survive.
There are good players coming through and the national team is indeed looking healthier than it has for years. Sadly, it’s an accident! Vermaelen, Vertonghen, Alderweireld and Démbéle learned their football in the Netherlands; Hazard was sent to France to learn his trade by his father, who also sent his brother Thorgen (17) to Lens for the same reason; Fellaini and Witsel benefited from the money invested by Standard Liege in their new training complex – a one-off, not repeated at other Belgian clubs.
That leaves Kompany and Defour who came through the ranks at Anderlecht and Genk respectively. Those two, however, are players who would have succeeded at any club. Both are intelligent, well-grounded, mature and naturally-gifted players. As for Lukaku, I feel the jury is still out. He’s only 17 but he has the physique of a 25 year-old. He’s scored his goals primarily in the Belgian league and that is not too difficult. It’s still to be seen if he will “train on” or if he will be caught up by other promising youngsters. It will be interesting to see his progress. The good thing is that, like Kompany, he appears to have a father who is giving him sound advice and is keeping his feet firmly on the ground.
Hi, I like your blog, congratulations!
Having said that, I think you're wrong about Lukaku. At least, I hope you are. 🙂
Interesting blog; bookmarked into favourites.
I'd say that Belgian football has certainly benefitted from a number of players experiencing the different styles and cultures of football overseas. It's something that has clearly been beneficial to recent World Cup winners (apart from Spain, who's strength lies in their familiarity).
Compare that to English footballers, who are largely insular and too arrogant to consider football outside of the blessed land of the Premier League , and they simply can't adapt to continental football.
Hi Liam, I agree entirely but my point was that there was no concerted effort by the Belgian FA to develop the game and its young players, cf. Germany. Young players have come through in various ways and many have benefited from time in different leagues. English players see no need to move I guess, as wages good and they do tend to see PL as the best. And they are pretty bad at adapting, compared to the young Belgians, for example, who usually speak 2-4 languages.
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