"Military Martial Second Plane" author: Xia worm can not speak ice
Last week, the rooftop upstairs of the Junwu Mushroom house was full again, and the reason is not to be thought about, naturally it is another double knock.
First Japan lost to Costa Rica, then Belgium lost to Morocco. There is a golden saying in the gambling world: football is bought backwards, villas are by the sea, but these two games are people who buy the opposite again, and they did not think of it.
Indeed, the match between Japan and Costa Rica was originally won by the Japanese team, but we don't know if the Japanese head coach Moriho floated as soon as he won Germany, and actually put the four main players on the bench, and the loss was purely deserved. But Belgium's loss was really unexpected, you know, Belgium, known as the "European Red Devils", is a real strong team.
He has never won a world championship
When it comes to Belgium, in fact, many people do not know much about them, and in the impression of military mushrooms, their chocolate is quite delicious.
▲Belgian chocolate
But don't look at Belgium is a small European country, but people's football is not a joke, once occupied the top of the FIFA rankings, even Brazil, Germany, Argentina and other old strong teams have to stand aside.
Speaking of this, some people must say that military mushrooms you are talking nonsense, no matter how strong Belgium is, it can still be stronger than Brazil, people have won five world championships, how many has Belgium taken? Although Belgium does not have a single championship, it is really number one.
This brings us to FIFA, the official ranking mechanism of FIFA, which is mainly based on points, and points are based on the team's overall record, not the final result of a certain competition. That is to say, whether you participate in the World Series, or the usual friendly matches, warm-up matches, as long as you win, the more points.
In 2021, Belgium touched the world's number one with a very strong comprehensive record. Therefore, even if Belgium has not won the World Cup, it can rely on more points than other teams to occupy the first place in the FIFA ranking of all the world's teams (ranked second in the world in 2022).
You think, even if Belgium is not a first-class team, it will not fall out of the world, and losing to Morocco is more unacceptable than "losing to Vietnam".
So after Belgium lost, the majority of fans quit. In Brussels, Belgium's capital, dozens of protesters threw stones at cars, or overturned and set them on fire. The mayor of Brussels, Philippe Clos, personally stood up and called on citizens to stay away from the city center. In addition to the capital, Brussels, two other Belgian cities, Antwerp and Liège, also saw riots. Similar incidents occurred in Belgium's neighboring Netherlands, as well as in the Dutch capitals Amsterdam and The Hague.
▲The streets of Belgium where riots occurred
At the same time, the Belgian media RTL broke the news of the Belgian national team infighting, it is said that several main players in the team had a fierce quarrel after the game, and even some of the players have not spoken for many years because of personal conflicts.
We know that any activity that requires teamwork, from the army to the tug-of-war, in addition to the team's own strong strength, another important factor that determines the victory is whether it is internal unity, and even sometimes the importance of unity is greater than strength, which is why sometimes one plus one will be greater than two, and sometimes one plus one will be less than two. If the infighting of the Belgian national team really reaches this point, farewell to this World Cup is a sure thing.
▲Belgium has no chance to qualify ahead of schedule
One country, three official languages
As Junwu Mushroom said before, the root cause of competitive sports is the product of politics, and football, as the world's largest sport, is the first to bear the brunt, and the infighting of the Belgian national team is also the truth.
Belgium is located in western Europe, bordering the Atlantic Ocean to the northwest, and is a country with a coastline. Belgium borders Germany, the Netherlands, France, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom. As a small European country with an area of more than 30,000 square kilometers and a population of more than 11 million, Belgium has three official languages.
▲Belgium
This also starts with the Belgian nation, Belgium has two main ethnic groups, namely the Walloon and the Flemish, of which the Flemish account for 58% of the total population and the Walloon account for 41% of the total population. Since Belgium has never established its own state in history, it has always appeared as a ruled.
Belgium was first ruled by the Roman Empire, and after the fall of Rome, it was occupied by the Franks from the 4th century AD and became part of the Frankish Kingdom, and then by the Duchy of Burgundy in France, the Kingdom of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, and in 1477 the Habsburgs began to rule here, first by the Habsburgs in Spain, and later by the Habsburgs of Austria.
At the end of the 18th century, the French Revolution broke out, and after the revolution, France began to export abroad, and in 1794 Austria was defeated by France, Austria ceded Belgium to France, and Belgium became part of France.
▲ French Revolution
Since it was a French territory, French naturally became the official language of the region, but French rule did not last long, and 20 years later, with the defeat of Napoleon, the European powers also began to settle accounts with France. When the Congress of Vienna was held in 1814, the victorious powers of the anti-French coalition redivided the territories that had been occupied by France and divided Belgium to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
▲The territories of countries delimited by the Vienna Conference in 1815
The Netherlands, like France, promoted this Chinese during its reign. Since the population of Belgium was larger than the population of the Netherlands at that time, in order to ensure that the country was not subverted, the Dutch government refused to give more seats to Belgians in parliament, nor did it allow people who did not speak Dutch to be officials.
As the so-called "who does not want to serve iron rice bowl", as soon as the policy came out, it was a great thing for the Flemish-speaking people who could speak Dutch, but the French-speaking Walloons suffered a loss, so the Walloons made trouble, and finally forced King William I of the Netherlands to cancel the decree of the full mandatory promotion of the Dutch language in 1830, but "it was too late".
Watching neighbors fight, the happiest is France, the more fierce the fight between Belgium and the Netherlands, the more opportunity you have to take advantage of the void. But on the other hand, Britain across the English Channel was the last thing to see France rise. Because from the perspective of British national interests and history, no matter whether Germany or France on the European continent, no matter which country is strong, it will become a potential opponent of Britain, and the British do not want to see it. Therefore, the best way is to make Belgium a separate country with no one to belong to.
▲ Belgian Revolution
It coincided with the popular uprising in Brussels in 1830, and in November the Belgian National Assembly declared Belgium independent as a constitutional monarchy, followed by a constitution. In 1839, under the leadership of Britain, Britain, France and the Netherlands signed a Treaty of London, in which they made written assurances recognizing Belgium's independence and guaranteeing its permanent neutrality.
▲Europe in 1839
After the establishment of Belgium, the French-speaking Walloons in the country occupied an absolute advantage. In addition to the majority of the Walloon population, it is more important that the Walloon concentration area is an area rich in coal resources, just in time for the first industrial revolution, coal is the main industrial resource. The Walloons followed the trend to open coal mines, set up factories, and soon made their fortune. The Flemishes on the other side were not so lucky, and could only rely on agriculture and commerce, naturally not as fast as the Walloons.
The word "wealthy" is not out of date at any time. At that time, there was an unspoken rule in Belgium, that is, the official could come to the Walloon first, so what should the others do? For example, the Flemish also want to be an official, of course, you can, you must first learn to speak French.
▲
Flag of the Walloon Region
In the mid-to-late 19th century, the European powers set off a frenzy to carve up Africa, followed by Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. Belgium was not willing to be resigned, in 1879, King Leopold II of Belgium organized an expeditionary force to explore Africa under the banner of "international development", saying that it was an expedition, but in fact it was colonization.
After nearly two years of arduous trekking, the Belgians finally came to the left bank of Lake Mallebo, 400 kilometers from the mouth of the Congo River, and before they had time to rejoice, they looked up and saw the French flag fluttering in the wind on the opposite bank, it turned out that the French had occupied this place a year earlier. Just when France and Belgium were not giving in to each other, Portugal jumped out, and then Britain, Germany, and the United States also joined in.
In 1884, at the suggestion of Germany, a congress to decide the fate of Africa was held in Berlin without African participation. Fifteen European countries participated in the conference, which finally resulted in a 38-clause and 60,000-word General Resolution that redivided the spheres of influence of the great powers in Africa. Among them, Belgium acquired a colony more than ten times its own territory - the Belgian Congo, which is the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
▲ In 1884, Europe partitioned Africa
Belgium mainly develops the local rubber industry in the Belgian Congo, and the indigenous people have to chop their hands if they can't complete their tasks, with this harvesting method, Belgium obtains a large amount of rubber raw materials, which are shipped back to the country, processed and then exported in the Flemish areas where the Flemish people gather, and the European shipping industry is also concentrated here, so the status of the Dutch-speaking Flemish people is improved.
▲ Flag of the Flemish region
Since the Flemish spoke Dutch and the Walloons spoke French, there were two official languages in present-day Belgium. By the way, since 1% of the population in Belgium still speaks German, German is also one of the official languages, because of the Treaty of Verdun signed in 843 AD, in which part of what is now Belgium was assigned to the Holy Roman Empire, forming the German-speaking region of today's Belgium.
What is more interesting is that Belgium implemented a constitutional monarchy at the time of independence, but the magic is that Belgium does not have a monarch, and in the end can only find a prince from another country to be its own king.
Reconcilable ethnic contradictions
There is no unified language and culture, so that there is almost no cohesion between the three ethnic groups in Belgium, the French-speaking Walloons are close to France, the Dutch-speaking Flemishmen are close to the Netherlands, the German-speaking Germans naturally have better relations with Germany, and the relationship between the three peoples is like the same forest bird in the storm, often "flying separately at the end of the catastrophe".
During the First World War, Germany attacked Belgium, and because the Walloons did not provide enough support, the Flemish resisted alone and suffered huge losses; In World War II, Germany attacked Belgium again, and the Flemish surrendered directly, severely punishing the Walloons. After the end of World War II, the political parties of the two ethnic groups broke each other because of their political differences, and Belgium was anarchic for more than 500 days between 2010 and 2011.
▲During World War I, German troops in the deserted streets of Belgium
Due to long-standing ethnic tensions, the Belgian football team missed three European Championships and two World Cups in the decade from 02 to 12, and even spoke two languages at a press conference during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
In order to balance the linguistic practices of the two ethnic groups, Belgium has made French and Dutch its official languages, national television and radio broadcasts also use two languages when broadcasting programs, and schools must also use two languages when setting up subjects. When encountering those unpopular courses, the students are too few to be worthy of bilingual teaching, so they teach in English, because English as a foreign language will not cause ethnic strife and is safer.
▲ Belgian language region
It is said that the communication in the Belgian team is also English, one to avoid conflict, and the other is to speak English that everyone can understand.
▲The logo of the Belgian national team, the upper right part is written in English "Royal Belgian Football Association" and the words "1895" indicating the year of the establishment of the Football Association.
In fact, there are many multi-ethnic countries in the world, and it is normal for ethnic contradictions to occur, but it is rare to see Belgium. It stands to reason that Belgium's "internal contradictions" can be noisy when you go home and close the door, but when it comes to the World Cup, it is somewhat "ignorant of current affairs" in front of the world, after all, family ugliness cannot be publicized.
But people quarreled and quarreled, and the two peoples never moved their hands, did not fight a single civil war, and did not even have an armed conflict. Compared with the use of force to solve problems in some places, military mushrooms appreciate Belgium's way of "trying not to do anything if you can quarrel".