The golden generation of Belgium was expected to hand over the reins to the future of the national team. Now, with De Bruyne and Courtois gone, and Lukaku openly expressing his discontent, we delve into a failed transition.
Dressed in a hoodie over a checkered shirt and a dark cap concealing his expression, Romelu Lukaku took center stage as a special guest on the Koolcast podcast, candidly sharing his thoughts for nearly two hours, particularly regarding the national team.
Just days earlier, coach Domenico Tedesco had issued an indirect call for help. Following yet another deserving defeat against France, a distressed Tedesco spoke at a press conference, acknowledging the unlikely challenge of securing a top-two finish in the Nations League group—essential for qualifying for the tournament’s quarter-finals. The coach promised a shift, asserting he would seek “the best possible players,” potentially including Lukaku, who has been resting to regain his form in Naples. “I believe in November, after several weeks, he will be available,” Tedesco hinted, smiling as he added, “Big Rom is back, I hope.”
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However, Lukaku expressed concern, stating, “I have always played with fire in me for the national team. I hope that over time, I will regain the passion to play for it. But the fire has not burned for a while. It’s primarily mental.” He cited the long road to the next major tournament and the controversial temperament of the new generation, already highlighted by De Bruyne and Courtois: “Kevin, Thibaut, and I always speak the truth. Sometimes, emotions come into play, but that’s normal. If you can’t handle it, then you need to leave. You are not in the right place.” Ultimately, numerous phone calls initiated by Tedesco in recent weeks have rekindled the Belgian striker’s flame. For now, he remains the only one of the three captains to climb back aboard the ship.
It all began with Thibaut Courtois. A night of anger followed a tough match. Against Austria, during Tedesco’s debut at the King Baudouin Stadium, the Devils struggled under Ralf Rangnick’s overwhelming pressure, salvaging a point solely thanks to an inevitable goal from Lukaku. While the incident surrounding the captain’s armband will be remembered, Courtois’s main grievance was elsewhere. “I never said the players were not good enough,” Courtois rebutted to Sporza. “The only thing I said, and I am not afraid to repeat it, is that if you are losing against Austria and you have players on the pitch who finished the season relegated and lost more matches than they won… then it’s difficult to turn the match around.”
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More than a year later, Kevin De Bruyne echoed similar frustration but with a distinct realization following a humiliating loss to a heavily rotated France side. Speaking to VTM, he reiterated a message previously conveyed in the locker room during halftime: “We must do better at all levels. If you are not good enough for the top, you must give it your all, and I haven’t seen that. I can accept that we are not as good as we were in 2018; I was the first to say it, but other things are unacceptable.”
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In the eyes of his veteran teammates, is Belgium no longer a winning nation? “If you play for a certain type of club where you don’t always feel the pressure to win and compete for titles, then step into the national team where, in the last tournaments, you’ve always played to win… if you are not that type of player who excels under pressure, then it’s very difficult,” summed up Lukaku. “I think that’s the problem we are facing,” he added. His reflections on his future with the Devils were clear: “I want to return to the national team with a positive feeling. But don’t expect me to be happy if we don’t win.”
More than just love for the flag, it was a passion for victory that united the often strong characters of the golden generation. During the World Cup in Qatar, as the smiles faded in the wake of defeats, the locker room exploded amidst the tournament. Even Eden Hazard’s enduring good humor could no longer mask the egos at play, illustrated by heated exchanges between De Bruyne and Toby Alderweireld on the pitch against Canada or testosterone-fueled confrontations in the stands of the Al Thumama stadium following the loss to Morocco.
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The unified Belgium was one that won, and its culture mirrored more of an American ethos than a Belgian one. Many within the golden generation were avid NBA fans—often spotted courtside when their schedules allowed—sharing a playground culture where “you win or you’re out.” Michy Batshuayi, a terror on the capital’s football fields, embodied this winner mentality perfectly: “If you couldn’t play, you weren’t our friend.” Following a third-place finish at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, many within Roberto Martínez’s squad struggled to understand why they had to parade around Brussels and celebrate in the Grand Place.
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That Belgium has changed. In part due to Youri Tielemans, the connective tissue between the golden generation, of which he was the youngest member, and the new wave he captained during the October national team gathering. Thrust into the deep end of professional football at 16, his journey resembles countless others—a prototype emerging from a training center, quickly grandstanding in a career where pitfalls are rare. Admittedly, competition is fierce within these talent factories, but every effort is made to ensure players and their immense potential thrive in a cocoon. It’s a football world where the downtrodden are increasingly scarce. “When you’ve always lived in a training center, you’ve always been… I hesitate to say in comfort, because I’ve never experienced it. But at least, you’ve never been in a tough spot. You enjoy a certain level of comfort,” reflected Felice Mazzù nearly three years ago when speaking to Sport/Foot Magazine. “We need to find a balance between modernizing the development of youth and instilling true values in life. Because football is not normal life.”
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For Lukaku, De Bruyne, and Courtois, it is inconceivable to laugh after conceding a nutmeg from Ousmane Dembélé. Lukaku reiterated on Koolcast that what this generation lacks is not talent but an obsession with victory, and he clearly sees himself as capable of guiding them down this essential path.
A generational gap is wreaking havoc, perhaps further exacerbated by the fact that today’s leaders were never yesterday’s. In the hierarchy of the golden generation’s locker room, the current captains of Tedesco’s era once played secondary roles. Initially under the omnipresent Vincent Kompany, the squad gradually rallied behind Eden Hazard, who spoke with his feet. Certainly, Lukaku often took the lead during pre-match speeches, rallying the Devils in a circle to raise the temperature. However, he never emerged as the strongman during difficult moments. In times of struggle, “Big Rom” prefers to retreat within himself. Before the 2020-2021 season, arguably the best of his career (Italian champion, 24 goals, and eleven assists), the striker used the pandemic crisis to prepare in solitude, sprinting along the garages of the complex where he lived, finding special moments with his mother and son. “I needed to be alone for a while,” he confided to Koolcast when discussing his post-Qatar blues.
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Thibaut Courtois, on the other hand, has always been somewhat of an outlier within the Belgian squad. Goalkeepers spend a considerable amount of time together, and the Octopus has never been a favored teammate among his competitors. For a long time, the goalkeeping coach was Erwin Lemmens, one of his close associates, reinforcing that sense of living in a bubble. A standout performer, whose abilities have placed him among the world’s best goalkeepers, he is a competitive beast driven by a hatred of defeat. Shortly before Euro 2021, he was already clear about his international future: “Right now, we have a team that plays to win, but if in four years, we sense that we no longer have the favorite team to win a tournament, I won’t spend three or four weeks preparing to be eliminated in the Round of 16, that’s not cute.”
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Who will be there to steer the Belgian ship on the road to the 2026 World Cup across the Atlantic? Romelu Lukaku seems to have decided to take on that guiding role.
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