DOHA, Qatar — Back in 2010, I wrote a piece for The Times of London about how no country could match Belgium’s hugely gifted group of youngsters — then aged between 16 and 22 — and wondered whether they could win a World Cup in 2014 or 2018. Unbeknownst to me, Vincent Kompany, already an established player at Manchester City, had wondered the same.
“It was a few years before that, I think 2003 or 2004,” he told me and Julien Laurens when we sat down with him for an episode of “Gab and Juls Meets…”.
“I was only a kid, maybe 17, but I talked about how we Belgians had an inferiority complex, maybe because we’re a small country. But at the youth level at Anderlecht, we had such a strong team and we were beating everybody comfortably — even Real Madrid. And then we’d break into the first team and all of a sudden, we couldn’t compete.”
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And yet that generation of Belgian players, as a group, did compete. With Kompany as a sort of “big brother” figure, they held the top spot in the FIFA rankings from 2017 to 2021 and, since 2014, were never outside the top five. What did they have to show for it in terms of silverware? Three quarterfinal exits and a semifinal run in major tournaments. And now, as they open Qatar 2022 against Canada on Wednesday night, the question is whether that window of opportunity has closed.
At 36 years of age, Kompany is now the manager of Burnley, and they’re top of England’s second-flight in his first season in charge. He played his last game for Belgium in 2019, but it’s clear his feelings for the “Red Devils” remain strong.
“We were number one in the world for six or seven years, the consistency was there,” he says. “But it’s a tournament and there’s a draw and anything can happen. And it’s fine margins. Look at what happened in 2018. We’re in the group stage and we play England in the final game, and we know the losing team will have the easier pathway to the final. So what do we do? Of course, we win this game and all of a sudden, we have to get past Japan, Brazil and France.”
Kompany says that finishing third at the last World Cup was still a fantastic result for Belgium, and he’s right. Even the defeat to France in the semifinal, decided by Samuel Umtiti’s goal, came with the slimmest of margins. Indeed, it’s one of the the peculiarities of the World Cup. Verdicts come through, heroes are anointed, villains are decreed and massive carbon footprints generated in drawing conclusions. And yet, at most, a team will play seven games.
“It’s nothing… seven games,” says Kompany. “And a World Cup is unlike anything else. You have to peak at the right time. We were at our peak in 2018 against Brazil in the quarterfinal and we needed to be, because they were so good. And then the semifinal against France was down to set pieces… [France keeper] Hugo Lloris made a great save from Toby Alderweireld, and they score on a near post run off a corner kick. Those are margins. I love participating in World Cups and tournaments like that… I love it. But I never draw conclusions from them. It’s pointless. The best team in the world [rarely] wins the World Cup.”
