STUTTGART — A minute after full-time of their final Euro 2024 group game, several of Belgium’s players moved to go and say thank you or sorry to the mass of supporters at one end of the stadium who had already announced their displeasure at the goalless draw against Ukraine with some vigour. Kevin De Bruyne, Belgium’s captain, had other ideas. He stopped his teammates from interacting with the fans, telling them to go straight back down the tunnel after a brief huddle.
The reaction, unsurprisingly, was one of mutiny. Supporters had travelled through Germany in their thousands and this was neither what they expected nor signed up for. England are not the only team to be booed after a 0-0 to end their group stage. Belgium didn’t even win their group.
You can’t really blame any supporter for displeasure. They had watched their team deliberately waste time in the final minutes, keeping the ball in the corner despite a goal meaning that they would win the group and have a far easier path. Now Belgium must face France in the last 16. Keep playing like this and they will not trouble the pre-tournament favourites.
There may be no more frustrating team in this tournament than England, but the banged fists on desks in the media seating in Stuttgart suggests that Belgium are trying to run them close. This is a team that should have walked this gentle looking group.
Everybody on the pitch seems to do a lot of pointing, all instructing each other what they must do now or next time but never actually doing it at all. One exception is Jeremy Doku, who is so different to the rest that it makes you laugh outwardly. It’s still not really a compliment; Doku does a lot but doesn’t achieve much with it bar overhit crosses or getting back to where he started.
This dull control would be permissible, maybe even viable, if Belgium were watertight at the back (for all the criticism of England, they have barely allowed their three opponents a single high-value chance). That’s not true with Belgium. They get caught on the ball in midfield. Wout Faes charges out and makes silly fouls in stupid positions. Jan Vertonghen is assured but slow, the veteran still pleading calm around him.
The sense that governs everything else when watching Belgium is that you – and they – don’t really know what is going to happen next. You see a player break and assume they will pass; they shoot. You see a simple pass and assume that it will come; someone kicks the ball in the other direction. You know they need a goal and they waste time. It is like everybody has just met on the first day of football school and begun playing as a team.
This might sound like good fun and, in some circumstances, it might well be – constant surprise can be fun. But not here at a major tournament where it really matters. It’s deeply infuriating. We know that there is fabulous talent here because we have watched most of it in the Premier League: Doku, Leandro Trossard, Amadou Onana, De Bruyne, Youri Tielemans. It’s all being wasted not because they are performing badly but because it is hard to work out how they are supposed to be performing at all.
Most frustrating of all is Doku, a young winger who looks the ideal fit for an impact substitute role because then there is a benefit to mercuriality. In small doses, Doku’s impudence is appealing as an antidote to custom. But for 75 minutes or more on Wednesday night, the only question was how many opposition players Doku would beat and in what matter he would ultimately disappoint a teammate as the final flourish.
Dominico Tedesco must do better too. He brought Trossard into the team but failed to solve the issue. There is a simple means of improving Belgium’s attack that we saw, briefly, against Romania: get players close to Lukaku, let him hold off defenders and then bring others into play.
Instead, Trossard simply stayed out wide as Dodi Lukebakio had done so unsuccessfully before him. There is very little point playing two wingers if Lukaku is left badly isolated and so has to drop deep. By the time Lukaku has fed the ball out wide, there is nobody to cross to. De Bruyne has licence to roam and has still been Belgium’s best player in Germany, but a 4-2-3-1 with De Bruyne nominally on the right and Trossard closer to Lukaku would surely make them more dangerous.
Instead, Belgium are sleepwalking through this tournament and will likely get a rude awakening against France. And now, thanks to the reaction at full-time from supporters and then their captain, the mood is one of disarray and disharmony. For years we wondered if Belgium could prove themselves to be the best in the world. The group table doesn’t lie: they aren’t even as good as Slovakia, ranked 42 places below them.
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