Belgium

Wouterinho said:

I know

And any additional information about Antonucci?

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His dad declared yesterday that he's staying at Anderlecht. For now.

so Belgium to make Brazil 2014 Semi-Final?

Fellaini will crush everyone all the way to the final and then win the whole thing. Fro is boss.

Hatem Ben Arfa said:

so Belgium to make Brazil 2014 Semi-Final?

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Some money will have to be put on that, what a team!

I know right, it's an awesome team. The amazing thing is they will all have 2 more years of experience by that time. They could really be a huge force in 2014.

I can't wait to see them when it all clicks into place.

It will be interesting to see if Anderlechts Musonda chooses Belgium over Zambia too. He is very highly rated.

They have enormous potential but never really performed when they needed too.

Galning said:

They have enormous potential but never really performed when they needed too.

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2 more years experience, with all of them now playing in Europes big leagues should definitely improve that on though.

Maybe. The problem is that they always play awesome for their clubs but when they play for the NT their level drops a lot.
Wilmots is a great coach for the national team though, he has a spark, a desire to win. Something Advocaat & Leekens lacked.

trust me they will come good.

If only the Netherlands and Belgium were still one country...footballwise, you'd have enormous potential, and far more reasonable options than both teams have got now.

The Netherlands lack a reliable defense, and we could use some more discipline and physicality at times in midfield, so players like Kompany and Fellaini would be very useful for us.

I hope Belgium qualifies - finally - for the next World Cup. It would be a very interesting team to watch. I even think that, agewise/experiencewise, they could very well be better than the Dutch team, since the Dutch defenders are either too old or too young now. Belgium has more players that will be in their best years by then, so they could easily surpass us. But first they'll have to perform more consistenly.

Any good young Dutch offensive talents, by the way? The only one I know of is Clasie...

Aren't they better than Holland already though?

Deco 20 said:

Any good young Dutch offensive talents, by the way? The only one I know of is Clasie...

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The Brazilian player, Douglas is 24 right now. Very good defender. Plays for FC Twente right now.

Becomes a Naturalized Dutch Citizen in 7 days time and has chosen to represent the Netherlands national team.

Deco 20 said:

Any good young Dutch offensive talents, by the way? The only one I know of is Clasie...

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There's Clasie (CM/regista), Narsingh (Right Winger), Luuk de Jong (Striker), Strootman (CM/box-to-box/regista), Fer (CM/Box-to-box), Maher (all-round CM, can play regista, trequartista, pivot, etc.), Wijnaldum (trequartista), and Ola John (Winger). That's pretty much it from the top of my head.

There are some talented defenders as well (Viergever, Willems, Martins Indi, De Vrij, Van Rhijn, Janmaat, and Douglas).

Most of them have already played their first game in the national team. It's hard, though, to judge their potential, since most of them still play in the Eredivisie.

Curiously, we don't seem to have many trequartistas coming though. Instead, it's mostly CM's. This is good in my opinion, since our current midfielders (Sneijder, VDV) tend to lack positional discipline, something these midfielders don't - except Wijnaldum, probably, but he's more of a dribbler used centrally. Strootman, Fer, Clasie and Maher probably aren't as good technically as VDV and Sneijder, but they're far more disciplined and, in Fer's case, far stronger physically and faster. Fer is more of a Ligue 1 - midfielder: tall, strong, quick, and with enormous stamina. He'd be great for the PL or the Ligue 1, or even the Bundesliga maybe.

I expect our future teams (2014 and later) to have less world class individuals, who tend to be egocentric in the national team, like RVP, VDV, Robben, and Sneijder to a lesser extent, but I think we will have a more disciplined side, with good 'team players' rather than world class individuals combined with average 'working players', who do all the defensive work. Our younger players seem more down-to-earth, and I hope they stay that way.

Hatem Ben Arfa said:

Aren't they better than Holland already though?

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We lost indeed. And I can see why one would say so, and they aren't wrong probably. But first, Belgium needs to qualify for a major tournament imo. They haven't managed to do so in years, whereas we usually do so. It would be foolish to say Belgium are better based on only one match.

Also, don't forget Van Gaal used 4 first-time internationals in the back four in the second half, when we conceded most of our goals. It was a game of experimentation for us, with a new formation and a new back line. For Belgium, it was a different story.