Future looking rosy for Belgium

Interesting article from a Belgian football journalist: http://belgofoot.squarespace.com/journal/2010/12/20/young-gifted-and-belgian.html

Young, gifted and Belgian
DateMonday, December 20, 2010 at 03:22PM

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.
Click to expand...
 
Hazards little brother is supposed to be top he's 16/17 and plays for either lille or marsaille (which ever one eden doesn't play for)
 
Sadly for us Belgians we lack the knowledge at the sidelines to guide this talented generation and don't have the cash to splash on a decent manager. And we lack decent fullbacks which has us playing CB's on the flanks.
And the previous generation of players managed to drop us to the 70th position on the ranking which has us drawing tough groups that will make it hard to qualify.

But we've had some entertaining matches the last few years getting 4th at the Olympics in 2008 (Best Europeans!) without some of the most talented youngsters there. And we showed some great stuff against Spain and Germany the last 2 years which brought fans back to the 80's when we weren't a pushover.
 
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