Belgium U21 beat Belarus 1-0 on Thursday, then Wales 1-0 on Tuesday. Six points out of six in Euro 2027 qualifying. Leaving the Kuipje, Gill Swerts was blunt: “The results are there, not the performance.”
DH Les Sports+ lists what was missing: tempo on the ball, depth, efficiency in attack, consistency over 90 minutes. The coach did see good things early on: “We had seen in the first quarter of an hour the movements we wanted to see. I thought we would open up the gap and then control the game. But that wasn’t the case, even if we were more dangerous than Thursday,” he said. He said he was pleased with the clean sheet and with Brughmans’ saves.
Freddy, who coaches a side in the third provincial division in Hainaut (Belgium’s Sunday amateur leagues), read all of it on Monday morning, next to the league table.
Tactically, two 1-0s and nothing conceded, I call that a project. I’ve been looking for the style since 2011 with the UEFA B licence. The promising first quarter of an hour and then nothing, I know it: at our place, that’s when two players go off to pick up the kids. And a keeper who makes saves, I’ll take him straight away, mine mostly has opinions. The nonchalance, I run that on Tuesday. When we’ve got eleven, that is.
The work goes on. Swerts wants to see the nonchalance of some players disappear, especially against an opponent like Denmark and in major tournaments. As it happens, a match in Denmark, in Velje, is scheduled for 6 October and should normally seal Belgium’s ticket to Euro 2027, which will be played in Serbia and Albania.
According to Swerts, Denmark will have to win, and Belgium’s victory in the first leg puts them in a favourable position, but they will go for the win. On Friday, Denmark play in Austria. The Belgian staff will watch that game. The players will be free.
It’s true, we checked: DH Les Sports+.
