On the wall of Roberto Martínez's study in Tubize, a few kilometers south of Brussels, hangs a picture of what is probably the most intense moment in recent Belgian football history.
It shows Nacer Chadli's goal to make it 3-2 in the round of 16 of the 2018 World Cup against Japan in the fourth minute of stoppage time.
In the middle of the second half the Belgians were still 2-0 down, but they reared up and the winning goal not only gave the small football nation moments of pure happiness, they also scored a beautiful goal.
It started with a perfect pass from Kevin De Bruyne to the right wing, where Thomas Meunier got the ball, whose cross pass served as a template for Chadli. This Thomas Meunier now finds a perfectly balanced mixture of speed on the offensive and responsible defense work in the current tournament - which he also did this Friday in the quarter-finals against Italy (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship, on ZDF and MagentaTV) wants to show. “We're just as confident as we were in 2018,” he says. "We have the feeling that the team is totally ready and can meet every opponent with the same enthusiasm and motivation."
For those who know Borussia Dortmund, where Meunier has been under contract since summer 2020, these strong performances raise the question of why the 29-year-old professional has not yet played at this level at his club. The full-back often acted erratically and incorrectly there, and seemed strangely insecure. Much like his compatriot Thorgan Hazard, who has been a celebrated hero in Belgium since his winning goal in the round of 16 against Portugal.
Hazard also had a rather weak season after 20 scorer points in his first BVB year, during which he only scored one goal in 16 games and was thrown back several times by injuries.
At the EM, he has already collected three scorer points in four appearances.
He even describes the 1-0 win against Portugal as “the most important goal of my career”.
This Belgian national team seems to give some players a strength that they sometimes lack in clubs.
Axel Witsel, the third from Dortmund, also amazed the audience with performances that were not to be expected.
"This generation deserves a trophy"
It has been almost six months since the midfielder tore an Achilles tendon in the Bundesliga, and participation in the European Championship was unlikely for a long time. Now Witsel entered the tournament without any real adjustment phase to the intensity of the competition and is playing excellently. In the first game against Russia he paused, in the 2-1 against Denmark he was substituted on, and he held out the other two duels completely.
The new Dortmund coach Marco Rose says that he has “looked again and again” to see how Witsel moves and that it is quite “extraordinary how you can work back so professionally after such an injury and then be a regular player in a tournament like this from the third game onwards ". 97.7 percent of Witsel's play reached another player, which is a spectacular rate, even if Witsel is occasionally criticized for his inclination to use a safety pass.
The convincing performance of the three BVB players in the team shows the spirit that characterizes this team, which has been at the top of the world rankings for almost three years.
In a documentary that aired on the BBC a few weeks ago, coach Martínez emphasized the historical significance of this European Championship for the Belgians: “I feel that this generation deserves a great trophy.
These players deserve something that will be talked about for the next 50, 60, 70 years. "
The backbone of the team
The team was already among the title contenders at the 2016 European Championship, but failed in the quarter-finals to Wales. At that time they internalized that in tournaments, even against less prominent opponents, performance at the limit is necessary. Two years later in Russia they lost to eventual world champions France with a goal from a corner against "a team that was no better than us and refused to play," says Martínez. There is now a keen awareness of the precious opportunity to leave something lasting.
You could also quarrel that Kevin De Bruyne, perhaps the best attacking midfielder in the world at the moment, is suffering and threatening to fail against Italy. You might complain that after a difficult year of injury at Real Madrid, captain Eden Hazard is not the world-class professional he once was. Belgium is more of a collective than in previous tournaments. A performance like after the break, after De Bruyne limped off the pitch, was "not possible two or three years ago," says Martínez. "As a coach, I couldn't be more proud - also of the backbone of this team."
Eden Hazard, De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku do not form this backbone, but rather the less celebrated people like the three Dortmunders who will return to BVB with a lot of self-confidence, preferably with a silver cup. Meunier even believes that a win at the continental tournament would be “more valuable than winning the World Cup” because it has been shown that the small nations also play on an equal footing. In this respect, it almost doesn't matter that Belgium meets Portugal in the round of 16, Italy in the quarter-finals and possibly Spain in the round of the last four against giants.