The Belgian National Team: Just A Bunch of Great Players?

[Massa]

Mignolet
Alderweireld Kompany Vermaelen Vertonghen
Hazard Dembele Witsel Januzaj
Lukaku Benteke

[Est83]

Januzaj is English

"Adnan is eligible to represent Belgium, through birth, Kosovo and Albania, through his parents, Turkey and Serbia, through his grandparents." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Januzaj

He's already turned Belgium down apparently, but it mentions on the same wiki page that England won't be able to get him, and that he prefers Albania.

[elkanofan]

Mignolet
Alderweireld Kompany Vermaelen Vertonghen
Hazard Dembele Witsel Januzaj
Lukaku Benteke

Lukaku and Benteke would not be good playing together, infact a disaster. If you playing two up top at least one has to be somewhat creative or agile at least or technically good. Two monsters up front would be horrific for the balance.

Its one or the other.

anyway Januzaj does not consider himself as Belgian, he has constantly refused to play for Belgium, he see himself as Albanian/Kosovan, just that their national team is shit, so he could end up just not bothering with international football possibly until he somehow qualifies for England. Or he may well just play for Albania.

[Massa]

You may be right re. Lukaku/Benteke, but who was creative out of Shearer & Sutton?

Either way:

Witsel Dembele
De Bruyne Hazard Mirallas
Benteke

Ain't too shabby

[Zenith]

De Bruyne could have played for England as well... his mother is English, she was born in Ealing (West London).

[Diaby24AFC]

Which side would win head to head?

Mignolet
Alderweireld Kompany Vermaelen Vertonghen
Hazard Dembele Witsel Januzaj
Lukaku Benteke

vs

Szcsz
Sagna Mert Kos Gibbs
Ramsey Arteta
Walcott Ozil Cazorla
Giroud

[Zenith]

Arsenal on current form will win imo.

Besides Januzaj has no business in Belgium's current first team anyway, De Bruyne is still comfortably better than him. And so are Mertens, Mirallas and Chadli. Not to mention Ferreira-Carasco, Bruno and Bakkali. Also Lukaku + Benteke is a bit too much of the same. Instead I would just play one striker and play an extra midfielder. Nainggolan, De Bruyne, Defour, Fellaini and Chadli come to mind.

[Fran Solo]

I don't think Benteke and Lukaku will have a good partnership up front. And the Belgian don't play direct football anyway.

[elkanofan]

You may be right re. Lukaku/Benteke, but who was creative out of Shearer & Sutton?

Long dead are the days you play with two out and out strikers up front. When you could properly tackle not thus crap we see nowadays you could afford to have one main defensive minded midfield who could chop into players. Nowadays tackling is more shadowing and contain where you need one defensive midfielder plus another guy to help out and another to bring the play forward to compensate.

Also partnerships don't work as they used to even this Sturridge Suarez partnership, one drops off the wing (usually Strurridge), the other goes up top.

[AAIRE99]

ye his dad sounds like a sicko good post zenit, am worried about him jumping ship from united over his dad.

Lukaku and Benteke couldnt agree more with Elkano

Shearer and Sutton? Different era, im pretty sure they would be shit now in the EPL, and if i recall correctly in his younger days Shearer was pretty agile and not as much of a lump.

[gzagee]

Congrats Zen for Belgium qualifying for the WC2014. I'm hearing they're 5th favourites but, I think that's a bit optimistic.
Really like what is going on with your country but, what is the scret? Do you have a national performance centre or some Academy?
And what do you think of the new crop coming through?
Personally i like Bakkali, Batshuayi and M'Poku (despite being an ex-Spud). Who else can we look out for?

[CynicalGooner]

They are slipping something into the school dinners

[Zenith]

Congrats Zen for Belgium qualifying for the WC2014. I'm hearing they're 5th favourites but, I think that's a bit optimistic.
Really like what is going on with your country but, what is the scret? Do you have a national performance centre or some Academy?
And what do you think of the new crop coming through?
Personally i like Bakkali, Batshuayi and M'Poku (despite being an ex-Spud). Who else can we look out for?

Cheers - 5th is indeed very optimistic, currently somewhere between 8th and 10th sounds more realistic. In my opinion Belgium still doesn't score enough and doesn't really have any game changers (yet?) - time will tell. Scoring has been a problem for many years and was one of the main reasons why Belgium didn't qualify for the Euros in 2012. Defensively, physically and technically the players are very sound - in midfield they rarely lose any physical battles and there's always a player making himself available to pass to. Half a decade ago the youth teams were already doing really well so it hasn't really come as a surprise. Having said that, I don't think many would have expected them to do this well, especially considering the amount of dissapointments the team and fans have had to deal with in recent times. For a while they really did look like they were becoming the new France, plenty of talent but no results. It's one of the reasons why so many fans are in such euphoria, now when the team has qualified. I still do believe the team could grow more considering the squad is still reasonably young.

There's a new talented generation that has slowly begun to emerge, especially around midfield and amongst te wings. Most of the folowing players could have a bright future ahead of them if they keep developing properly.

Thibaut Courtois, Chelsea/Atletico, GK, °1992
Koen Casteels, Hoffenheim, GK, °1992

Mathias Bossaerts, Man-City, CB, °1996

Youri Tielemans, Anderlecht, CM/DM °1997
Junior Malanda, Wolfsburg/Zulte-Waregem, DM/CB, °1994
Andreas Pereira, Man-U, CM, °1996
Charles 'Charly' Musonda Jr, Chelsea, CM, °1996
Dennis Praet, Anderlecht, CM/AM, °1994
Hans Vanaken, Lokeren, CM/AM, °1992

Thorgan Hazard, Chelsea/Zulte-Waregem, LW, °1993
Adnan Januzaj, Man-U, LW/AM, °1995
Zakaria Bakkali, PSV, RW, °1996
Yannick Ferreira Carrasco, Monaco, LW, °1993
Massimo Bruno, Anderlecht, RW, °1993

Siebe Schrijvers, Genk, CF, °1996
Michy Batshuayi, Standard, CF, °1993
Boli Bolingoli Mbombo, Brugge, CF, °1995 (Lukaku's nephew)

*All of the players listed above are between the age of 16 and 21

[Fran Solo]

Zenith, would you mind giving that list to Wenger?

[AFC10]

I see Belgium as the dark horse next summer if they have a fully fit squad. If the players can take their club form into international you've got a real chance of going very far. In the very few games I've watched them play Belguims play hasn't been pretty decent to watch so if England got knocked out next summer Belgium have my backing!