Let's start with the history of Belgium.
World No. 1 midfielder Kevin De Bruyne
Belgians are made up of French-speaking Walloons and Dutch-speaking Flemish. Historically, they never established an independent state, but only a region, which was ruled by the Duchy of Burgundy, Spain, and the Roman Empire. In the world's multi-ethnic countries, it is inevitable that there will be such and such ethnic contradictions, but it is rare to see such a serious confrontation with Belgium. However, even if they are seriously opposed and tear each other down, the two peoples only quarrel and never do anything, only playing lip service. Neither before nor after the founding of Belgium had a civil war between the two peoples, or even a fierce armed conflict.
But this deeply antagonistic cultural and linguistic clash has also been brought to the football field. The Belgian national team missed three European Championships and two World Cups from 2002 to 2012, and one of the reasons was the Walloon and Flemish players in the team.
Belgian team crest
The logo of the Belgian Football Federation is engraved with two lines, one is the abbreviation of the French Football Federation and the other is the Dutch abbreviation.
During the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Belgium internationals Vermaelen and Witsel attended a press conference at the same time. Vermaelen spoke Dutch, while Witsel insisted on speaking French. There are even rumors that in order to avoid language conflicts, the Belgian team speaks English uniformly, because English is safer and will not cause division within the team because of language.
Of the 23 players in the Belgium team at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, 11 are of immigrant descent, a whopping 47.8%. Five of them are of parents from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, three are of Moroccan descent and the other three are of Spanish-Portuguese, Malian and Kosovo-based immigrant descent.
This Qatar World Cup, from the Belgian media reports, the Belgian team broke out infighting, Eden Hazard, De Bruyne, Vertonghen fierce quarrel, only stopped with the intervention of Lukaku. In addition, according to reports, there are 6 people in the Belgian team who are not happy with each other!
Infighting became a tradition
At a previous press conference, De Bruyne said that "the Belgian squad is too old to win the World Cup", while the 35-year-old Feltonhen responded after the loss that "we may not score because the attacking players are too old" and responded to De Bruyne.
Romelu Lukaku
In addition to open fights, the Belgian dressing room is also full of secret fights. Since Courtois had dug De Bruyne's girlfriend, the two had not spoken for years. Batshuayi and Romelu Lukaku, who have competition for positions, do not have a good relationship between the two. Between Hazard and Tedrosa, they also ignored each other and refused to talk.
Yang Kun Grand Eden Hazard, Belgium
Under the influence of this atmosphere, Belgium have three points from one win and one loss in the first two rounds of the group stage, ranking third in the group, and the next round against Croatia led by Modric Kovacic Perisic, the prospects of qualifying are worrying.