The faces of the Belgian players at the final whistle against Iran told a familiar story: disbelief, frustration, irritation, without any real edge of anger in it, nothing properly explosive, more a repetition, another entry in a record running for close to a decade now—this idea of a side constantly spoken about as elite, never quite arriving there.
Belgium have lived in that in-between space for years, suspended between ambition and limitation, with the names still carrying weight and the reputation doing the rest, every tournament cycle repeating the same positioning of contenders almost automatically before the match begins and something shifts quietly.
Against Iran it came back in the same shape, possession with Belgium for long spells, the ball circulating and the team circulating with it, the game never really following in the same rhythm, Garcia’s side running into an opponent with structure, compact lines, alert to small openings and the timing of them.
Iran never fully stepped back, there were moments always just at the edge of control, Kanadi and Taremi especially sharp and direct in a way that pulls everything slightly out of shape, with Courtois already inside the match at that point producing two saves that feel heavier than saves should, almost interrupting something that was beginning to tilt, and without him it reads differently, the match staying there as a fragment of where Belgium are.
Time passes through a generation once labelled in very large words, De Bruyne and Lukaku still present and still authoritative in touch and detail, but the bursts, the carry, the sense of bending a match over ninety minutes are less frequent now, not gone, just thinner, while the transition underneath them still has not really formed.
Doku is the clearest example even from outside this game, at City everything rupture and acceleration, repetition of one-against-one moments, while with Belgium the idea of him feels held back and contained, less access to the zones where he actually breaks things, and Trossard too, at Arsenal drifting and arriving late into spaces that already bend, while with Belgium more static, circulation without the same incision, something reduced and slightly flattened.
It spreads across the group, talent present but not accumulating into pressure, and at that point the conversation shifts without needing to announce itself, with Rudi Garcia still without an attacking structure that really holds, De Ketelaere remaining the clearest unresolved case after being left out against Egypt and unused here, still between roles that never settle, no.10, midfielder, connector, something suggested more than defined.
Belgium look scripted, positional football taken to a point where it hardens, zones occupied and movements pre-drawn, order and control both present, but it starts to sit still as well.
By 2026 defensive organisation is almost a condition of the game, teams without the ball moving as one, lines compressing and reforming and closing again, while possession alone no longer tilts anything, what matters now being what happens between positions, and Belgium rarely find it as the ball moves but the opposition barely reacts, everything staying in front, attacks forming and dissolving and forming again in the same spaces, with Egypt in qualification and now here, the same outline across different shirts.
Chances remain thin and transitions back feel open in a way that never quite closes, with interruptions arriving in different forms, Ngoy’s red card against Taremi reshaping everything late on and Beiranvand decisive throughout, while still, when De Cuyper becomes the most consistently dangerous outlet, arriving from deep and late and unmarked at times, it says enough without needing emphasis, and maybe that is where it sits for Garcia, not one problem and not even a single pattern, but a spread of small faults across the pitch, not dramatic individually, together harder to ignore.