Vive le Belgium! With World Cup qualifications nearing an end next month the group leading Belgian national football team is really getting ready to shock the world this summer. In the past decade they couldn't even come close to matching their powerhouse neighbors France, Germany or Holland. Now, the rise in Belgian talent has made the country the third most expensive team in Europe. Just looking back ten years ago they couldn't even break the top 60 in the world ranking, but now they're in the top ten. How did all this happen or better yet where do other countries find this type of luck? After doing some research it turns out it isn't based on luck at all. The Belgians actually made their country into this endless supply of talent all on their own. With only 11 million people in the country, here's how they did it. Belgium was pretty good for many decades always qualifying for the big two, World Cup and Euro tournaments, but they never really made a huge mark on world football like their neighbors. Then in 2000 they got the chance of a lifetime to host Euro with Holland. There was hope for the Belgians just like with any host nation, but they got knocked out of the group stage early on. Belgium was quickly becoming another washed up former contender until Michel Sablon, some big shot in the Belgian FA, came along. His staff would talk to the powerhouse neighbors, learn from them, then they would force all the major Belgian clubs to bring up their youth players through their blueprint. This blueprint became a booklet that Sablon passed out to all the Belgian clubs. The aim was to create talent not through winning, but youth development. It didn't matter if your teams lost, as long as your players kept learning and getting better, but wait that must have been crazy. All of a sudden the top teams like Anderlecht, Club Brugge and Standard Liege had to develop players based on some little brochure. Well, that's exactly what happened, but not without controversy and disagreement, still in a miraculous way the clubs followed the blueprint. Fast forward and holy crap I can name over 11 players in the national team even though, while writing this post, I have yet to watch a single Belgian national team game. The miracle doesn't end there though. For such a small country Belgium has had some history of tension between its two major linguistic groups; the French speaking Walloons and the Dutch speaking Flemish. Still, they have been able to manage their differences through coach Marc Wilmots, former Belgian football star and politician, along with Captain Vincent Kompany, better known as the Belgian patriot. In fact, the team is made up of all sorts of different ethnic groups from Fellaini's Moroccan background to Benteke's Congolese roots. The beauty behind all of this is how the national team has been able to use all the diversity to add to their style of play. They can play like a Barcelona tiki-taka team, but they also have the speed and tempo since many of their players play their club football in the Premier League. With all the newly found talent through the Belgian system I only wanted to know one thing. Why don't other struggling countries do the same if it worked for Belgium? Remember, this was all done through the youth development in the Belgian league and all in the past decade. I guess, Belgium does have one advantage or bit of luck that the rest of Europe might not. It's located in the West. It's main city Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union for Christ's sake. Basically, they have the mentality and means to bring something like this together. I simply can't imagine all major clubs in countries like Poland, Bulgaria or Hungary coming together financially to base all their development on one unified theory like this. Instead, all I can imagine right now is just how big of an impact these Belgians can make in the World Cup. No matter what they achieve or how far they make it I know one thing for sure now. Hazard, Benteke, Fellaini, Vertonghen, Mignolet, Lukaku, Witsel, Mertens, De Bruyne, Van Buyten, Mirallas, Kompany, Vermaelen and countless others will all be names mentioned on repeat by the footballing public during this World Cup. I for one will be watching this second Belgian revolution unfold this summer.
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