Belgium has spent a decade being the cautionary tale of modern soccer — a country of 11 million that produced De Bruyne, Lukaku, Hazard, Courtois, Vertonghen, Kompany, and somehow never reached a final. The "golden generation" peaked at third place in Russia 2018 and has been losing players to age and injury ever since. The 2022 group-stage exit in Qatar was a funeral. The 2024 Euros, where Domenico Tedesco's side scraped through the group and lost to France, was the burial.
The coach is now Rudi Garcia, the well-traveled Frenchman who took over in January and has spent his first months blending the old bones (De Bruyne at Napoli, Lukaku, Courtois) with players who weren't on a senior roster three years ago — Doku, Onana, Openda, Saelemaekers, Debast. Belgium qualified the proper way out of UEFA Group J, beating Wales for top spot and putting seven past Liechtenstein on the final matchday.
What you're watching this summer is the last honest attempt by this group. De Bruyne is 34 and will not be at 2030. Lukaku is 32. Garcia is trying to get the most out of one more cycle while quietly handing the keys to the kids. Belgium probably won't win the World Cup. They might still beat anyone in a single 90 minutes, which is more than most nations can say.
Week 1 Update: Belgium drew Egypt 1-1 in the kind of match that sums up this squad perfectly — talented enough to score, not quite ruthless enough to kill the game off. De Bruyne created. Doku ran. The goal came. And then the defense let one in. A point against a tough African side is fine on paper, but this is a golden generation running out of matches, and draws don't get you trophies.
Matchday 2 Update: Another draw — 0-0 with Iran — and this time Belgium didn't even score. Nathan Ngoy's straight red in the 66th minute for hauling down Taremi left them with 10 men for the final 24 minutes, and they held on for dear life. Two draws, 2 points, zero momentum. De Bruyne's golden generation needed wins, not arithmetic. The final matchday against New Zealand is now a must-win, which is a sentence that should terrify a team this old.
Matchday 3 Update: Belgium finally remembered how to score — and they scored five. Trossard bagged a brace, De Bruyne got one, Lukaku got one, Saelemaekers added a fifth in stoppage time, and New Zealand were dismantled 5-1. Belgium win Group G with 5 points. After two matchdays of existential dread, the golden generation lives to fight another day. De Bruyne's farewell tour rolls into the Round of 32.
Round of 32 (July 1): Down 2-0 to Senegal at the hour mark, the golden generation looked finished. Then Lukaku headed home in the 86th minute, Tielemans tied it in the 89th, and 30 minutes of extra time later, Tielemans stepped up and converted the penalty that made it 3-2 in the 125th minute — the latest winner in World Cup knockout history. An extraordinary comeback. USA await in Seattle. If De Bruyne's farewell tour has a theme, it's this: they will not go quietly.
Round of 16 (July 6): Belgium 4-1 USA in Seattle, and the golden generation is in the quarterfinals. De Ketelaere was the story — two goals in the first 33 minutes, the second arriving almost immediately after Malik Tillman had briefly leveled at 1-1, just to remind the Americans that Belgium weren't blinking. The match turned definitively in the 57th minute: U.S. goalkeeper Matt Freese sprinted out of his area, lost possession, and Vanaken tapped into an empty net for 3-1. Lukaku got the fourth in stoppage time — his 90th goal for Belgium, because of course — and the three co-host nations are all eliminated. De Bruyne ran the show from deep. Spain await in the quarterfinals. The farewell tour is still going, and it's going all the way to the quarterfinals.
Quarter-Final (July 10): Spain 2-1 Belgium in Los Angeles, and the last honest attempt is finished. Fabián Ruiz opened the scoring in the 30th minute; De Ketelaere's 41st-minute equalizer gave Belgium their best moment of the tournament, briefly stopping the clock on Spain's run. But the 88th minute brought Mikel Merino off the bench, substitute goalkeeper Lammens could only fumble a Cubarsi shot into his path, and the finish ended everything. De Bruyne — booked in the 85th minute and unable to conjure anything in the final moments — played his last minutes at a World Cup. Lukaku came on too late to matter. The golden generation ran out of road two matches short of the final, exactly as the last generation before them had. They couldn't find a trophy. They couldn't be blamed for the trying.
