The Evo-Web Football Thoughts Blog

very good post gerd , interesting to read , from those guys I only remember Mihajlovic on Inter , I remember he was crazy too but really good player and had some class free kicks ! all tho never knew he was gipsy !

I'm very young and never seen anything of Red Star team on those golden years ,but my father used to talk me a lot about football of those days in yougoslavia , and he told me how good they were , but I have seen by myself too videos and stuff about football on ex yougoslavia and it was pretty good , also team of Prishtina was part of first league too for some years (6 i guess) and other team from Kosovo too "Trepca" (they only been part for one year and then they got relegated (same year they reach final of Cup tho but they lots it) , my father told me how KF Prishtina beat Red Star at Marakana on 83 and my father went there to see match , he said it was a really good memory and he was so happy :) in general Prishtina was very strong team at home and they always played some good football vs Red Star and Partizan !

@cfdh_edmundo where are you from ?
 
@ edmundo: the Krajina-Vukovar was my mistake, i thought Vukovar was in the Krajina. I'm sorry and thanks for poiting this out.

I don't really deserve much praise, as i've made a compilation from bits that appear in the book "Behind the curtain" by Jonathan Wilson (IMHO one of the best football writers around, just finished his book about GK's, "The Outsider" and you should also read 3Inverting the pyramid" about the evolution of football tactics.
 
Great piece gerd, my father has told me all about this team, and I have watched many clips and matches from this Crvena Zvezda team. By the way, it's a shame Pancev went to Inter later. He could've been remembered by more people if he went to a different club.
 
Nice piece Gerd.

About Sinisa Mihajlovic, he was a great player and a TRUE piece of $hit! Dirty player. Reminds you of Zlatan or Luis Sarez and the many other great 'villains' of football.
 
YouTube - Duiveluitdaging 4 / Défi 4: la récompense / de tegenprestatie !

Remember the first piece of this blog about the Belgian national team.
Before each match the red devils talk about a challenge for their fans, if the fans do well, then our national team rewards them with something special.
For tomorrow's match against Macedonia they wanted as much childeren's drawings as possible and as a reward they would play "special football matches" against some of the kids.
Look at the clip in the link...

Good marketing.
 
Can Vincent Kompany become a decisive factor in the mother of all Belgian elections ?

Last week Roberto Mancini criticized Vincent Kompany because he played for Belgium after being injured for six weeks. Mancini claimed that Kompany should have known that playing for Manchester City is much more important than playing for his national team. I’m afraid he may have made a serious mistake. At the end of the match against Newcastle Mancini substituted Kompany and when he left the field he completely ignored Mancini. For a subdued player like Kompany, this was a rather dramatic gesture and may prove to be a problem for Mancini and his hold over the City dressing room. But this is speculation of course. Let’s ask ourselves why the national team is that important for Kompany.

First of all there is the obvious reason: this is Belgian’s golden generation (until now Belgian players scored 55 goals in the EPL and players like Courtois, Mertens and De Bruyne are extremely important in other competitions, Jorgen Klopp wants to lure De Bruyne to Borussia Dortmund). It’s now or never for this generation, after twelve years of absence these players can lead the Belgian national team finally to another big tournament (but Croatia remains a very tough opponent) where they hope to shine as possible dark horses. But this is not the main reason.

Vincent Kompany is a very atypical football player. He is one of the few players who looks beyond football. Kompany feels an engagement towards Belgium and Brussels. There is the stereotype of Belgium as a country that is falling apart. A country that looks as if will end up like Czechoslavakia: after some sort of divorce Belgium is expected to fall apart in two different miniature states. This is far less a forgone conclusion than most foreigners think. At the moment the biggest party in Flanders is the separtist NVA, but they only have 36% of the votes in halft the country (according to recent polls, that is).

Kompany, national coach Wilmots and the majority of the players see themselves as the last symbols of a unified country.Rumours about past difficulties between Flemish and Walloon players proved to be complete bullshit, there were some intergenerational problems, but the older generation has disappeared apart from Timmy Simons. Vincent Kompany is profiling himself more and more as a political force (his father is a local politician in Elsene, one of the 19 communities that are part of Brussels) and as an opponent of NVA’s very popular Bart De Wever. When De Wever won the Antwerp elections and became the mayor he gave a(n) (in)famous maiden speech. The quote that was mostly used in the Belgian and foreign papers was the following: “Tonight the city belongs to everybody, but especially to us”. Us being the separatist NVA. When a couple of weeks later, Belgium beat Scotland Kompany tweeted the following message: “Tonight Belgium belongs to everybody, but especially to the national football team”. De Wever, who is reputed to attack all his opponents verbally, for once remained silent because he realized that this was a war he couldn’t win.

In the autumn of 2014 Belgium faces what is called the mother of all elections: regional elections in Brussels, Wallonia and Flanders. If the polls are correct NVA will have the Flemish prime minister and people fear that Flanders will ask for a divorce, thereby trying to gain independence. Contrary to what most foreigners think, the average Fleming doesn’t care about separatism and independence. People vote for De Wever and his NVA because they are fed up with thraditional parties and because De Wever became fabulously popular because of a television quiz (this is the honest truth).
As captain of the national team, Kompany is not only very popular in Brussels and Wallonia, but also in Flanders. At the moment the Belgian national team is a major hype among a majority of Belgians. Matches are sold out within minutes and every television show has free tickets for even the most insignificant matches. At the moment the Red Devils are the only symbol of a unified Belgium and both Wilmots (a former senator) and Kompany realize this.

If our national team would go to the 2014 World Cup, this would be smack in the middle of the election campaign and even inadvertently they would become a very powerfull symbol against separatism. If the team would have good results, this might pose a serious threat for De Wever and his NVA. In 1986 the national team ended fourth in the World Cup and this created an unseen wave of nationalism. Suddenly people all over Belgium were buying national flags, something very atypical. Logic rarely applies to football, but more and more Belgians are convinced that this current crop of players is much more talented than the 1986 squad, so quite a lot of people are hoping for an even better result in Brazil. Marouane Fellaini considers Belgium as the favourites for the 2014 WC (i know this sounds outrageous). Kompany himself is more sensible and he has made a public statement that reaching the 2014 WC would already be a major success. More and more political commentators see football success as a serious threat for De Wever and it isn’t hard to imagine that De Wever hopes our national team will have a disastrous campaign, although he is smart enough not to mention this publicly.

Kompany is well aware of this and he is upping the ante. He is in telligent enough to see that football can integrate outcasts. Brussels is the European capital where the difference between the haves and the have nots is the biggest. This is strange in a country where the social differences are minimal. Brussels suffers from a very high unemployment rate among youth and most youths in Brussels have foreign roots like Kompany (Congo) , Witsel (Martinique), Lukaku (Congo), Dembele (Mali), Fellaini (Morocco), Mirallas (Spain) Chadli (Morocco) and Benteke (Congo). For those young people access to employment is particularly difficult. Among quite a few Belgians those young people have a very negative image: they are seen as refusing to work and often ending up in criminality (an image that was supported by what happened to another player of the national team, Mboyo, who has a 16 year old was convicted for a gang rape). Kompany and his team mates are serving as role models for young Belgians from foreign origins. Kompany is also aware of the universal appeal football has on (at least) half of the world population (the male half that is). People from various cultures are football mad and while football can divide people, it has also the power to unite people from various background and culture. An that is why Kompany bought a football club.

Currently FC Bleid is a third division club on the brink of disaster. FC Bleid is a club from the village Bleid in the Luxembourg province, the most southern part of Wallonia. But why am i writing this ? Well FC Bleid will move to Brussels. Since 2012 there are schemes that a group round former international Michel Dewolf (current coach of FC Bleid) wants to relocate FC Bleid to Molenbeek, one of the more underserved parts of Brussels. Molenbeek has a high percentage of youths from foreign origins (most of them have the Belgian nationality but are perceived as trouble making foreigners) and on top of that has a stadium that used to be the home of former first division club RWDM (once champions and once semi-finalist of the UEFA Cup, they used to be my favourite club). This was a sugar daddy club that went bankrupt when the sugar daddy had enough of it. Former players and fans wanted to restart RWDM and the financial diffulties of FC Bleid presented an opportunity. Kompany was well aware of this and he dcided to buy the club. Currently his sister Chrsitelle (former Belgian champion triple jump) is president of the new club that is still called FC Bleid. Once the club will play in Molenbeek (Brussels) it will have a new name (go to the website www.westartfromscratch.be to propose a name, i proposed Rainbow Brussels) and it will concentrate on the youth of Brussels. Kompany wants to give opportunities, a pass time and a stepping stone to youth not unlike him. By doing this Kompany is one of the few people who does something constructive in underserved parts of Brussels and on tiop of that he has the guts to target a category of people that has perhaps the most negative image among most other Belgians and certainly in Flanders (yes, we are a nice bunch of people !) This club can become another symbol against De Wever and his NVA. Whereas the national team can oppose NVA in it’s separatist ambitions, the new football club will pose another challenge for De Wever. Until now Belgium has a system of social security. Social security is a system that is based on internal solidarity between the rich and the poor people. Intelligent but biased people have calcultated that this solidarity system results in streams of money that go from the northern Flemish part to the southern French speaking part of Belgium. One can compare this with the way Lega Nord looks upon Southern Italy. NVA considers Brussels and Wallonia as underdeveloped and corrupt parts that have the best parts from the solidarity system. The iconic youth from Molenbeek are seen as the worst excesses of social security. Of course this is blatant stereotyping and thus nonsense, but it is a strong negative image that is quite enduring and that is accepted by a large part of the Flemish population. By making those youth the primal target for his club, iconic Kompany makes a statement against De Wever. By doing this, Kompany and his football can become an important factor in national and regional politics. Add to that an immensely popular coach with experience in politics and who profiles himself as one of the last true Belgians and one can see the political implications of a good campaign for our national team.

So it’s not hard to understand that Kompany will do everything for his national team. If the national team fails to reach Brazil, then it could well be that in the next qualifying round Fellaini, Witsel, Van Buyten, Mirallas, Hazard and Benteke will face Vertonghen, Dembele, De Bruyne, Lukaku and Courtois when Wallonia plays Flanders…I’m curious which new country both Kompany and Wilmots will embrace. Perhaps Brussels ?
 
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I didn't know any of that and it is very interesting indeed. Great read as always and very insightful.

Most people say that football is only a game...and it is, but it can have such an effect on its surroundings (Positively or negatively).

It is not the first nor will it be the last of football and politics merging and playing off of each other.
 
Nicely written Gerd and like Bobby said VERY informative!

Now I'm even more interested in Belgium's results and what happens from here on than before!
 
Kompany's club got a name:

BX Brussels.

BX because that is the name the youth of Brussels give to their own city.
Brussels, because it sounds international.


Good name.
 
i finally got enough time to read your last post Gerd. very interesting stuff. i didn't know the secessionist wave was so much of an issue in belgium (i remember we spoke about that once, but i didn't realise it was this serious). thank u so much for taking the time to post this buddy.... really appreciate it. :))
and since there's so much running on the WC2014 campaign.... Go Belgium!!! :RSCARF:

i'd say that, strictly speaking of football, belgium shouldn't feel much pressure about delivering at the next WC. this team is still pretty young, several players are still to reach their prime, so they still have at least 2 WCs ahead of them (and 4 years from now most of those players will be much more mature and experienced).
however i do realise that, given belgium political situation, the timing might be an issue and the players might feel some pressure (especially since the next wc will occur at the same time of the electoral campaign).
Gerd said:
Kompany's club got a name:
BX Brussels.
BX because that is the name the youth of Brussels give to their own city.
Brussels, because it sounds international.

Good name.
Click to expand...
well, it's definitely much better than "rainbow brussels" :P

great post mate... keep em coming ;)
 
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That's quite an insight Gerd. Thanks for writing this piece.

Never knew anything about Belgium apart from being a lovely peaceful country that makes amazing chocolate.

If Belgium staying one is the better choice then I hope that never changes and wish Kompany's campaign all the best.
 
He does what his manager says and more, in addition to holding a responsibility towards his country.
 
I somehow doubt that he (or any player) would waiver his wages in the event that he suffered a recurrence of his injury.

The one thing in his favour is that the title race was well over. I'd be very disappointed in him if he chose to risk it in the event that the title race was too close to call.
 
Godotelli said:
We pay his wages. He should do what the manager says.

End of.
Click to expand...

Theoretically you are right and Kompany is intelligent enough to know this.
But that is theory.

A good manager is also a people's manager. Knowing how important that is to the human being Kompany, speaking out against him was pretty poor management by Mancini.

Mancini called himself the most successfull manager in English football.
I'm not really impressed by him. Tactically he is very weak (he made himself very bad against Spurs, AVB won that match for Spurs whereas Mancini lost it for City who where by a large margin the best team until that 7 minute spell and there are other examples). But most of all his people's management is extremely poor. He often condemns his player publicly which is a stupid thing to do.

Kompany has the image of being a model pro and team leader. It is very dangerous and stupid to search conflicts with that kind of player.

City would be better of with another manager IMO (but what do i know ???).
 
He's always been and always will be a fiery character who sometimes opens his mouth without thinking. Technically he has been the most successful manager in english football in recent years. I don't think he's that bad tactically, he's brilliant at organising a defence, plays good football and has changed a fair share of games in our favour via tactical changes. With that said, he has been poor this season, particularly with the needless experimentation of 3 at the back. Both he and Marwood are to blame for the poor title defence. And he's certainly to blame for not beating Spurs.

As for a new manager, I'm not a fan of changing manager after 1 poor(ish) season but I will understand if Khaldoon thinks it's time. The problem is who? With Pep gone, of all those mentioned, only Frank De Boer peaks my interest. Marcelo Bielsa hasn't been mentioned but he'd be my pick, tho admittedly it'd be a gamble. Under him we could become the best in the world or we could quite easily implode!
 
I thought you were a Spurs fan, Gerd...

It's Tottenham Hotspur or Spurs, not "Hotspurs".

That's equivalent of calling Man City for "Manchester Cities" or Man United for "Manchester Uniteds".

Nice article though, but you could insert some line shifts (paragraphs) here and there to break up the wall of text. I'm talking about the article about the "good or bad clubs".
 
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Godotelli said:
He's always been and always will be a fiery character who sometimes opens his mouth without thinking. Technically he has been the most successful manager in english football in recent years. I don't think he's that bad tactically, he's brilliant at organising a defence, plays good football and has changed a fair share of games in our favour via tactical changes. With that said, he has been poor this season, particularly with the needless experimentation of 3 at the back. Both he and Marwood are to blame for the poor title defence. And he's certainly to blame for not beating Spurs.
Click to expand...
i still haven't figured him out honestly.... u look at some of his work (at fiorentina and lazio) and u think he's a great coach.... then u look at his experience at inter and man city, and it suddenly feels like he's just a decent (and overrated) coach.

how do man city fans feel about mancio?:))
 
Sabatasso said:
I thought you were a Spurs fan, Gerd...

It's Tottenham Hotspur or Spurs, not "Hotspurs".

That's equivalent of calling Man City for "Manchester Cities" or Man United for "Manchester Uniteds".

Nice article though, but you could insert some line shifts (paragraphs) here and there to break up the wall of text. I'm talking about the article about the "good or bad clubs".
Click to expand...

Does it really matter? I've heard a few people call them The Hotspurs etc just another way to call them, like 'Spurs' from Hotspur.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/nov/02/tottenhamhotspur-premierleague

:DD
 
lo zio said:
i still haven't figured him out honestly.... u look at some of his work (at fiorentina and lazio) and u think he's a great coach.... then u look at his experience at inter and man city, and it suddenly feels like he's just a decent (and overrated) coach.

how do man city fans feel about mancio?:))
Click to expand...

He's the most loved manager we've had for a long time. There are a number of fans however that are concerned that we should be doing better, tho there's no ill will there. He'll always be a club legend

I'd give him another year. Look at Dortmund, they finished bottom of their group last year and now...
 
lo zio said:
i still haven't figured him out honestly.... u look at some of his work (at fiorentina and lazio) and u think he's a great coach.... then u look at his experience at inter and man city, and it suddenly feels like he's just a decent (and overrated) coach.

how do man city fans feel about mancio?:))
Click to expand...

He's very much a decent coach. But that's about it.

Made better by having huge financial backing behind him.

Can't work miracles without signing players he wants so City will have to back him properly this year unlike last summer. Think he'll do better next season.
 
Godotelli said:
He's the most loved manager we've had for a long time. There are a number of fans however that are concerned that we should be doing better, tho there's no ill will there. He'll always be a club legend

I'd give him another year. Look at Dortmund, they finished bottom of their group last year and now...
Click to expand...
matherto said:
He's very much a decent coach. But that's about it.

Made better by having huge financial backing behind him.

Can't work miracles without signing players he wants so City will have to back him properly this year unlike last summer. Think he'll do better next season.
Click to expand...

thanks for the input guys :))
 
The overachievers, the captain's band, the player and his manager:

Tuesday july the 30th, Eindhoven Philips Arena, 9.30 PM: PSV Eindhoven - Zulte Wargem 0-0 at half time.
After 45 minutes of the CL qualifying match between PSV and Zulte Waregem the match is still goalless and that is one of the biggest miracles i have ever witnessed. It should have been 6-0 for PSV Eindhoven, but PSV kept on missing sitters. Seldom have i seen one club dominate another one... But there is still hope for a very weak Zulte Warengem. After all, worse than this is not possible.

Tuesday july the 30 Eindhoven Philips Arena 10.45 PM: PSV Eindhoven - Zulte Waregem: 2-0 after 90 minutes.

It should have been 10-0. Strange for an overachieving club like Zulte-Waregem who are always at their best when it matters. This is very uncharacteristic.

A litle bit of history.
When in 2005 Zulte Waregem promotes to the Jupiler League, they are something special. The club made their debute in the highest division after 4 consecutive promotions. At that moment their coach, Franky Dury is not a professional coach. He is one of the highest ranking officers of the Belgian police who as a coach as won titles in every single division except in the highest.
Surely this litle club will face a tough season and will in the end go down. At the end of the season, Zulte Waregem have reached a Euro League (then UEFA Cup). ... another miracle.
After a couple of seasons of good results and very good and intelligent football, Franky Dury leaves Zulte Waregem for ambitious club AA Gent and in that season Zulte Waregem is a mess and narrowly avoid relegation. This is a club without future it seems. But then AA Gent helps them, they sack Dury and he returns to Zulte Waregem. With almost the same team, the club narrowly avoid...being champions...loosing 1-0 (with a Lucky goal) in the deciding play-off match against Anderlecht. Almost the same team.

What is the difference ? Zulte Waregem have loaned a player from Chelsea: Thorgan Hazard. In a single season Thorgan Hazard succeeds in being seen as much more than the brother of Eden.

The big question is if Thorgan Hazard will return on loan to Zulte Waregem for the next season. The season where the club have a chance to play Champions League football. Champions League for a club that his much smaller than other minnows who have played at the highest level.
During the months of june and july it seems as if Hazard will not return because both Anderlecht and Racing Genk want to loan him and especially Genk has excellent relations with Chelsea (they share a scout and besides that there are De Bruyne and Courtois). But in the end both Anderlecht and Racing Genk decide not to loan Hazard to general bewilderment of most Belgian football fans. It's clear that something strange has happened, but both clubs refuse to talk about the reasons for all this.
In the end Hazard will once again play for Zulte Waregem.

In the first match of the new season Hazard is the deciding player with a goal and an assist. He no longer plays as a LMF but as the number 10 and he also takes all the free kicks and the corners. That is strange because in French player Franck Berrier Zulte Waregem has perhaps the biggest free kick and corner specialist of the last decade in Belgian football.

And then there is the humiliation in Eindhoven. We all know that the Dutch league is better than the Jupiler League, but surely the difference can't be that enormous...what happened ?

Friday august the 2th strange news in Belgian media. Davy De fauw (De fauw is not a typo..it's correct) is no longer captain of Zulte Waregem. Club icon de Fauw is succeeded by 20 year olde loanee Thorgan Hazard and in the dressing room there seems to be a revolution. Players treaten to boycott the weekend league match against KV Kortrijk ( a derby, this is the Zulte Waregem equivalent for Spurs-Arsenal or the Old Firm). The club organizes a press conference, but coach Dury refuses to be present. This has never happened.

In the end vice-captain Karl Dhaene talks to press. Dhaene is disgusted. It seems that Chelsea agreed to loan Hazard to Zulte Waregem but the club asked that Hazard should be given more responsibility. The president of Zulte Waregem (who wanted to relocate the club to Antwerp, the day after the lost champion match) agreed and asked Dury to name Hazard as free kick and corner taker and to let him play as a number 10 (Franck Berrier is the archetypical number 10 and has performed outstanding for the club). A strange decision, but after a talk with his squad Dury agrees, because Hazard is a very important player.

But for Hazard's manager, this is not enough. He wants a meeting with the president of the club and he wants Thorgan to be the captain of the club. Once again the president immediately agrees and gives his coach the order to make Hazard captain of the team. In the end Dury agrees hesitatingly...the plan is to make Hazard captain after a couple of months when the club is well settled in the new season. But Hazards manager does not agree and treatens to withdraw his player. This happens in the afternoon before the match against PSV and in the end the club president enters the dressing room less than an hour before the kck-off and tells his team that this will be the last match with Davy de Fauw as club captain. Beginning with the match against KV Kortrijk, Thorgan Hazard will be club captain.

PSV Eindhoven has a better squad than Zulte Waregem but in recent history the club has frequently won against better teams and at worst was a handfull for big clubs. Not this time.

Back to the press conference. Vice-captain Dhaene is disgusted. The players think that Hazard's managers knows that he will never play for Chelsea and thus will be transferred. It seems that clubs are prepared to play more money for a player who has captained a club. Dhaene tells the press that the players sympathize with Hazard. They know that all this happens without him having a real influence...but he says that nevertheless the players are furious. They think the coach should choose the captain and not a manager of a player. Several players have requested a transfer: Davy de Fauw, Franck Berrier, but also forward Mbaye Leye, Zulte Waregem's top scorer last season. So it seems that finally the club is defeated and this not by a better club, but by a manager....

This is not a joke, but a true story.
 
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In the end Thorgan Hazard himself did the sensible and decent thing: he refused to be captain and said that he tought De fauw should be captain. The match against Kortrijk was played without a boycott and Zulte Waregem won. But there is still trouble at the club.
 
Belgium – favourites for the world title ? Yes, in 2022 !


With a 1-2 win in Croatia, the Belgium national team qualified mathematically for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. This litle country is in total euphoria. The Sunday after the qualification match 5000 fans were present for a training session in a torrential downpour, a further 85.000 followed the training session on Youtube. And this for a team that less than 5 years ago played home matches for less than 7000 fans. A team that played an away match against Finland and that wasn’t accompanied by a single fan…For their recent away match in Scotland, the Red Devils were accompanied by 10.000 fans. This is totally insane.
And the expecatations, are they high ? Who knows. The Belgian FA and coach Wilmots will be happy with a quarter final place in Brazil. This team might do better at the Euro’s in France and perhaps also in Russia in 2018. But the people who follow football expect most of the 2022 World Cup in the desert. Wait a minute, will the current team not be too old by then ? Yes. But there is a golden generation coming. The true golden generation.
In 2022 Belgium might start the WC with the following team: Alexandro Craninx (GK Real Madrid, currently 17 years old) – Leander Dendoncker (CB Anderlecht – 18) – Jason Denayer (CB Manchester City 18) – Mathias Bossaerts (CB – Manchester City 16) – Adnan Januzaj (SMF – Manchester United 18) – Charlie Musonda Jr (CM – Chelsea 16) Youri Tielemans (CM Anderlecht 16) – Andreas Pereira (SMF – Manchester United 17) – Divock Origi (Winger Lille 18) – Siebe Schrijvers (CF Racing Genk 17) – Zakaria Bakkali (Winger PSV 17).
Former football player, coach, pundit and youth specialist Johan Boskamp is following this team for some years now and has constantly been calling them, “the best football team in the world”. An exageration out of some misplaced chauvinism ? Johan Boskamp is not a Belgian, he is Dutch (traditionally our biggest rivals). And it seems that talent scouts from around the world certainly don’t disagree with Boskamp. Look at the teams were those young lads ply their trade. And then there is also the Anderlecht youth team from the same age that outclassed every other club team in the prestigious Viareggio Tournament, with players like Sammy Bourard and Nabil Jaadi. All those players are born in 1995 or 1996. Is this a coïncidence ?
No. This is Vision 200 delivering results.
It all started among youth coaches on a brainstorm weekend in 1999. Those Youth coaches were very pessimistic about the short term expecations foor Belgian youth development and were thinking about a long term action plan that aimed to do something with the talent that had to be present. This was the birth of Vision 2000, a new vision about youth education in Belgian football. Those youth coaches looked at what happened in Belgium’s neighbouring countries: Holland, Germany and France. They decided to mix the analytical way of doing things that was used in France and Germany, with the spontaneïty that rules in Holland. Vision 2000’s basical principles are rather simple:it’s all about aiming to make things as hard as possible for the young football talents and about playing a 4-3-3 formation.
That 4-3-3 formation is used by all Belgian youth selections an this not because the coaches are necessarily convinced that tactically this is the best possible formation, but because this formation is the most demanding for young players. Young players who constantly play 4-3-3 become complete football players and this formation is also ideal to learn as much as possible. It is no coïncidence that Wilmots’s favourite formation with the senior team is also 4-3-3. A 4-3-3 where AMF Kevin De Bruyne plays as a right winger. The left winger of that formation is Eden Hazard whose favourite position is AMF, left back Jan Vertonghen is a CB and DMF Axel Witsel was once a SMF or an AMF. Young Belgian football players seem to be very versatile… The reason for all this is Vision 2000 and the focus on 4-3-3.
Vision 2000 is not about results. Belgian youth teams prefer to play ‘good football’ to winning. The paradox is, that they end up winning after all. The 4-3-3 formation and the way it is learned to those young players guarantees technical and skilled build-up from the back, high pressing and lots of one-on-one situations. The fact that coaches adapt a playing style that results in lots of one-on-one sitautions means that players have to take important decisions from a very young age and that, consequently, they are not afraid of making actions that might result in the loss of the ball. That is also the reason why loosing is not seen as a big problem. The objective is always long term.
Another of the main principles of Vision 2000 is the fact that Belgian youth teams are aspiring as much possession as possible. This is a very un-Belgian thing to do, our last succes team played counter football and since then all Belgian teams played from an underdog position: counter football and a very defensive use of the off-side trap, and this even at grass roots level. Vision 2000 stopped all this defensive nonsense. It is ridiculous to learn the off-side trap to a six year old kid. The aim of football is that kids amuse themselves. Very young football players amuse themselves most by trying to be skillfull, not by running miles and miles or by learning how to use the off-side trap in the most succesfull way. Coïncidentally the best players are also the ones with skills, the ones who have learned to take decisions and who are used to play one-on-ones… Possession is important because young players only learn football skills in match situations if they have lots of ball possession.
And what about the results? Does the Belgian youth selections win ? Not always. Last year the Belgian U-17’s lost 2-1 to Spain, but afterwards the Spanish coach admitted that Spain were lucky and that his team never played against a better team. Football is about winning, but afterwards the Spanish FA asked the Belgian staff if they could come to Madrid and explain Vision 2000. A couple of weeks ago the U-16 side beat Germany 4-1. The second match was lost 1-0, but the German coach conceded afterwards that his team had adapted totally to the Belgian way of playing and that this was the first time he did this. He also admitted that the best team had lost and was very curious about Vision 2000.
Is this all the result of Vision 2000 ? We might never know, but how is it possible that suddenly the Belgian youth teams start to win and that half the world of youth football is interested in Vision 2000 ? It might all be coïncidental, but that seems very unlikely.
And then there are the youth academies. Belgian clubs still are among the minnows in Europe, but they are among the financial high flyers of the continent. In the period of 2010-2013, the Belgian clubs are doing very well with transfers. The club with best transfer ratio (who won the most money with transfers) was AC Milan, Spurs were second (Gareth Bale), but Genk, Standard and Anderlecht were 4th, 5th and 6th. Not bad for a litle country of scarcely 10 million inhabitants. Genk, Anderlecht and Standard have understood that they don’t have the money to buy first class foreign players. In the 70’s world class players like Rensenbrink, Haan, Lubanski, Lato and Preben Elkjaer Larsen played in Belgium. Now a club like Anderlecht buys very young players like Biglia or (their new Serbian CF) Mitrovic, hoping that they will develop and become better in order to sell them with a large profit. Most Belgian clubs can only buy third rate foreign players. The number of French players that come from a level beneath league 2 is astonishing. Now and then there is a hidden gem like Delaplace, but after one good season with Zulte-Waregem, Delaplace is once again playing in France, albeit this time in Ligue 1for Lille.
If you can’t buy good foreign players, and you don’t want to waste money on relatively expensive third rate foreigners, there is only one alternative: youth academies. Standard, Genk and Anderlecht have understood this 10 years ago and have been very succesfull because of their youth academies. One only has to look at the names that came from those academies Kompany (Anderlecht), Witsel, Mirallas, Carcela, Fellaini (Standard) and Defour, Benteke, De Bruyne and Courtois (Genk). Clubs are starting to realize that giving youth players first team opportunities might be the shortest way to financial wealth or at least financial break even. A club like Racing Genk has earned more than 30 million euro two seasons ago. For a Belgian club this is a massive amount of money and who knows what it might be worth if Financial Fair Play ever really takes off. And this isn’t the end, all the above mentioned players are not one-offs. Currently foreign scouts go to Standard matches for forwards Batshuayi and Ezekiel, to Genk for Sieben Schrijvers and to Anderlecht for Dendoncker, Tielemans, Bourard and Jaabi.
If teams earn lots of money for youth products, that means that the next generation will also play for the first team (17 year old Youri Tielemans is currently the leader of the new Anderlecht team after they sold Mbokani, Biglia and Jovanovic) and this in turn will attract other youth players. Ten years ago players went to clubs like Lille, Ajax and PSV at the very young age of 11 or 12 years old (Hazard, Mirallas, Vertonghen, Vermaelen, Dembele), ten years ago Anderlecht dumped a player like Dries Mertens. Now those young talented players stay with Belgian clubs, play one or two seasons for the first team and then go to big foreign clubs.
The last factor that has helped to develop all these extraordinary young talents is the fact that Belgian football finally succeded in seducing players from foreign origin who were born and raised in Belgian. Countries like France and Netherlands have multi-ethnic national teams for ages, in Belgium this is something relatively new. Lukaku and Kompany have Congolese roots, Witsel has a mother from La Réunion, Fellaini has Moroccan parents, Dembélé’s father is from Mali and Mirallas’ father is from Spain. Zakkaria Bakkali has Moroccan parents but choose to play for Belgian. And we all know everything about Janzaj’s origins.
So the 2022 WC is guaranteed and it nothing can go wrong ?
Of course things can go pearshaped. Players like Januzaj, Fereira, Musonda Jr. and others can choose to play for other countries. Sieben Schrijvers is a centre forward who is lightning quick, technically highly skilled and has lots of scoring abilities, but he is perhaps too small to be a world class centre forward. Can all those players really break into the first team of all those big clubs ? One can cast doubts about this. And it also seems that the real golden generation, the kids who were born in 1995 and 1996, still has to develop a real team ethos where the focus is on the collective and not on the individuals.
Will Belgium win the 2022 WC ? Probably not and frankly, who cares… the important thing is that Belgian coaches have developed a vision that might help other countries too (England anyone ? Maybe the English FA might ask about Vision 2000 instead of hoping that Januzaj will wait 5 years before playing international football for England).

The important thing is that now the Belgian FA is supporting grass roots talent.
I’m coaching my son’s team for 4 years now and they are higly succesfull. This team has been the best Belgian youth team (in their age category) for 4 years in a row (it’s a coïncidence), and the FA is actively supporting us with know how and with more experienced youth coaches who are learning us their tips and tricks. Next season our kids will for the first time play on a big pitch in 11 versus 11 matches and the only thing the FA wanted from our club is the promise that these boys will play 4-3-3.
We as parents choose to let our kids (10 of them are in the same school and even the same class) continue their football at grass roots level instead of big clubs like Anderlecht, Mechelen, Genk and even Lille and Ajax. Right at the moment their school carreers and their other leisure activities are at least as important as becoming the next Eden Hazard. The good thing is that the Belgian FA helps us with their know how. By doing this we as parents don’t have to make difficult choices when our kids are still at a very young age. Our kids can live like other kids, can enjoy themselves and still be kids at a young age.
A couple of weeks ago our team once again won the final tournament in the under 11 competition for the whole of Belgium. In the final tournament they won all their matches against teams who have four or five training sessions in a week, while our kids have only two and are not burdened by the pressure that they should become the next big thing. Probably those kids will never be football stars, but we never had to take the gamble to give everything up in order to fail…
Our kids learn a lot on the training field, but they still enjoy themselves. When our kids (from a club that is the Belgian equivalent of a division under the Blue Square Conference) beat the under eleven team of Lierse (Jupiler League, the Belgian equivalent of the EPL), all the players of the loosing Lierse team cried bitter tears…Our kids were astonished. Their mentality is that you win some and you loose some and you only really loose when playing football isn’t about fun anymore… All this thanks to the Belgian FA and some really clever youth coaches. Perhaps that is Belgium’s biggest victory.
 
Great post :))

It really is looking to be a great few generations of Belgium talent out there. I look forward to seeing it. It will be nice to see another nation, especially a smaller one who seems to be doing things the right way have some success.
 
well its not a blog but would be an intresting topic regarding football reforms because Platini's new idea about the yellow card system, he wants the yellow card to be a 15 minute punishment for the player during the match like in rugby instead of a caution...he says it would be more rightous because a foul wouldnt affect the upcoming games only the current one
 
15 minutes? way too long time in my opinion, in some matches there is 4-5 yellowcards in a half, and i think this would help the players to be more respectful to each other to the ref well...lets say it isnt the only factor of getting a yellow card, sometimes the ref HAD to give for even not serious fouls and sometimes the ref makes mistakes so is it still a good idea? 5 minutes would be alright...by the way in 15 minutes that player could take a big breath and come back almost fresh...or get a serious injury maybe for taking that much rest and get back to the field,
and what about the video referee? it was declined because football should keep it's traditions and we got goal line referees...so now why this idea then?

but these are just my theories, concerns , it could turn out well , test it in an amateur league, or youth league for a season
 
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