Belgium finished third in 2018 and pushed France to the brink in the semifinals, but its golden generation wants gold medals to validate its era.
It’s not necessarily now or never for Belgium, but there’s no guarantee that a golden generation like this will come around again. And even now, many of those stars are either out of form (Romelu Lukaku and Eden Hazard) or past their prime (Jan Vertonghen and Dries Mertens). Still, no one would be surprised to see Belgium in the final—or win it, for that matter—after two solid World Cup runs that ended against World Cup finalists in Argentina and France.