If Belgium spent years pondering the question of what came after the golden generation, there was a certain logic to the answer: the next generation. Their World Cup has come to the backdrop a needless controversy about Jeremy Doku’s decision to leave the camp for the birth of his son, Praise.
Rather less praise has been forthcoming for the Red Devils; criticism is likelier to follow should they tumble out of a second consecutive World Cup in the group stage. Which, as they face New Zealand, seems unlikely but Belgium could be forgiven for feeling scarred by the same stage four years, by Romelu Lukaku’s litany of misses in the stalemate with Croatia. Now a draw would almost certainly be enough. Now, unlike then, they are almost certainly not in a pool with two eventual semi-finalists: not when they have faced Egypt and Iran, with the All Whites to come.
