If you’re in the mood for 7000 words on the Belgian national team, check out this Grantland piece. It’s an 
interesting account of Belgium’s rise from footballing obscurity — and, at Euro 2000, public humiliation — to 2014 World Cup-dark-horse status.
Apparently, like the football authorities in Germany and a couple of other European countries, the Belgian FA has spent the last decade cultivating a “utopian” playing style based in part on Dutch total football. (England should take note.) The article also describes the cultural and demographic changes that have turned a team once divided between French and Flemish factions into a France ’98-esque bastion of multiculturalism.
Let me know what you think.
In For The Hat Trick 