Belgium’s highest rated daily television show is Thuis, Flemish for “At Home,” a soap opera now in its 31st season that draws more than a million viewers each day in a nation of 11.8 million.
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Nothing is too over the top on Thuis. This past season we learned that an unconscious Marie survived after being saved by Vince from a deadly fire that started after a romantic, candlelight dinner between Marie and Cedric turned into a hostage situation. Sadly Cedric was killed by a burning beam while also trying to rescue Marie.
Every four years Thuis slips to No. 2 in the ratings for a few weeks behind another long running Belgian soap, As The World Cup Turns, which also can be counted on for plenty of fireworks if not satisfactory endings.
The current season’s plot lines are almost as complex as those on Thuis.
In the latest episode alone, a real cliffhanger, Belgium’s World Cup Round of 32 come from behind victory against Senegal on Wednesday, Leandro had to be separated by a Belgium and Senegal players after Youri shoved and F-bombed him, Romelu, the team’s all-time leading scorer and longtime penalty taker, citing a lack of confidence opted out of taking a match deciding penalty kick, and Jeremy visibly fumed after be subbed out after 55 minutes. There’s no word on his reaction to being labeled among other things one of this World Cup’s “flops” by the Belgian media.
On a positive note, Kevin and Thibaut are friends again after not speaking to each other for 14 years following a dispute over Caroline.
Belgium meets the U.S. in a Round of 16 match in Seattle on Monday and what could be the season finale As The World Cup Turns and the final episode for original cast members Kevin De Bruyne, the 35-year-old midfield genius, power forward Romelu Lukaku, 33, and goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, 34.
“This evening, the team wrote a piece of history,” Belgium coach Rudi Garcia said after the Red Devils’ 2-1 extra-time victory against Senegal. “But we haven’t won anything yet.”
Yet as in ever.
Belgium has been global soccer’s most infuriating side so far this century, a team as dysfunctional as it is underachieving. Belgium topped FIFA’s world rankings from September 20, 2018 to February 10, 2022 but could not replicate its stars’ success at the club level in major international tournaments.
De Bruyne and his Manchester City teammate, central defender Vincent Kompany, Courtois, and winger Eden Hazard, the goalkeeper’s teammate at both Chelsea and Real Madrid, won two Premier League, and three UEFA Champions League titles. But Belgium’s so called Golden Generation failed to shine at the World Cup and European Championships.
What happened to Belgium’s Golden Generation has been a frequent headline at major international tournaments, a question that has clearly irritated its members.
“And you say that France and England and Spain and Germany (didn’t have) a golden generation?” De Bruyne snapped at reporters.
For the record Spain won the 2008 Euros and the 2010 World Cup and its current team is the reigning European champions. Germany won the 2014 World Cup. England reached the 2020 and 2024 Euro finals while France won the 2018 World Cup and reached the 2022 tournament’s final.
“Overall, this generation definitely had what it took to achieve the big goal of winning a title,” Jean-Marie Pfaff, the goalkeeper on Belgium teams that reached the 1980 European Championships final and the 1986 World Cup semi-finals, told the BBC. “Unfortunately, this didn’t work out because the players rarely played as a real team, with one player running for another. The burden was on a few individual shoulders, which was not enough.”
Belgium lost to eventual finalist Argentina in the 2014 World Cup quarterfinals, was upset by Wales in the 2016 Euros quarters. The Red Devils reached the semifinals of the 2018 World Cup but had to settle for third place beating England in the consolation final. Belgium was again knocked out of the 2020 Euros in the quarterfinals.
Asked about Belgium’s prospects before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Hazard responded that the Red Devils had a “better chance to win four years ago.”
De Bruyne was even more direct.
“No chance,” he said. “We’re too old.”
Even so Belgium’s failure to advance past the group stage was a surprise.
Kompany and Hazard are retired leaving De Bruyne, Courtois and Lukaku as the last holdouts from the world leading group on a current Belgian side that’s done little to dispute the belief that the Golden Generation is past its golden years.
“We’ve escaped by the skin of our teeth a few times already at this World Cup,” defender Maxim De Cuyper said. “That’s why we’re still very hungry for more.”
Belgium opened this World Cup with 1-1 and 0-0 draws with Egypt and Iran — the Red Devils’ score in the tournament opener coming on an Egypt own goal — before blowing out New Zealand 5-1 to win Group G.
The Red Devils trailed Senegal 2-0 and appeared headed to another World Cup exit until Lukaku scored in the 86th minute with Youri Tielemans sent the match into extra time with a goal three minutes later.
Lukaku’s goal was his 92nd for Belgium. Only Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo among European players has scored more goals in international play (146 ).
Despite his goal, Lukaku’s confidence has been shaken after a persistent hip injury that limited him to just 64 minutes of playing time for Napoli during the 2025-26 Serie A season. So when a controversial penalty was awarded to the Belgians in the fifth minute of stoppage time added onto extra-time against Senegal, Lukaku passed.
“I was going to take it, but I’m still going through a difficult time mentally, so I preferred Youri to take it,” Lukaku said. “It’s not about me — it’s the team that has to win.”
Tielemans converted the penalty kick, the latest goal in World Cup history, to send Belgium into the Round of 16, an advancement that failed to silence the Red Devils’ critics.
WASHED UP MOVIE STAR
De Bruyne is Belgium’s greatest ever player and for parts of two decades the most influential and creative midfielder in England’s Premier League, the world’s top domestic league, leading Manchester City to six Premier League crowns, five League Cups, two FA Cups and a UEFA Champions League title.
“There’s no doubt that Kevin De Bruyne is one of the greatest players in the history of the Premier League,” Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola said when De Bruyne announced in April 2025 he was leaving City. He played with Napoli this past season.
But De Bruyne’s resume hasn’t prevented him from coming under increasing criticism during a World Cup in which he has yet to complete a full match.
La Libre, a leading French-language Belgian newspaper, compared De Bruyne to a washed up movie star while also taking aim at other Red Devils veterans.
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“I really didn’t appreciate them being called has-beens,” Garcia said. “When a nation has players of that calibre, you support them.
“It’s outrageous to write that Kevin De Bruyne is burned out. Germany and the Netherlands are already out of the tournament; being the favorite means nothing.”
De Bruyne has acknowledged publicly he’s finally mended fences with Courtois after a dispute over the midfielder’s former girlfriend and a front page scandal and plotline that could have carried at least a season of Thuis.
De Bruyne, however, is hardly the only person associated with the Red Devils to have issues with Courtois, considered by many as the world’s premier goalkeeper for the past decade.
Courtois had a falling out with then Belgian national team coach Domenico Tedesco after he named Lukaku as the team’s captain in 2023 instead of the goalkeeper. A year later Courtois left the national team.
With Tedesco forced out in part because of the dispute, in part because of criticism by De Bruyne, Courtois returned to the national team in March 2025 only to have his replacement Koen Casteels quit in protest.
“It’s strange that the football association has turned 180 degrees and is rolling out the red carpet and welcoming him back with open arms,” Casteels told reporters at the time. “I think it’s a bit strange that Courtois can decide for himself whether he can come back. It is not so much towards Thibaut, but mainly towards the football association. That does not fit in with the standards and values that I have about what a team sport or a sporting organisation should have. As of today, I am no longer available (for the national team).”
QUESTIONING THE WIZARD
But the current cast’s biggest lightning rod has been Jeremy Doku, the supremely gifted 24-year-old Manchester City winger, described by former France, Arsenal and Barcelona megastar Thierry Henry as “extraordinary.”
Even before the World Cup started Doku found himself the center of controversy when he said he would leave the tournament even if Belgium was in the cup’s late rounds to attend the birth of his first child, which was due the second week of July.
“If you ask me what I want, my answer is that nobody wants to miss the birth of their first child,” Doku told reporters.
The comments touched off an often toxic international debate over responsibility, fatherhood, professionalism and patriotism.
French sportscaster France Pierron ripped Doku on the television network of the influential French sports daily L’Equipe.
“There are hundreds of footballers who would kill to be in your shoes. It might never happen again in your life,” Pierron said.
“You’re living out a childhood dream, yet you’re going to walk away from it all to attend the birth of your child — a disgusting moment, if you’ll pardon the expression, when the dad is completely useless.”
Pierron later apologized.
Doku played in the opener against Egypt but missed the Iran game, Belgium officials initially saying Doku was too ill to play. But it was later revealed that while Doku had been ill he had been cleared by team doctors to return to England for the birth of his son
“Welcoming my son into the world is one of the greatest blessings God has ever given me,” Doku wrote on social media. “Now it’s time to get back to football and represent my country on the biggest stage.”
He played 56 minutes against New Zealand. Doku was visibly angry when he was pulled along with De Bruyne after 55 largely ineffective minutes against Senegal.
“Doku was subbed out before the 60-minute mark, which speaks volumes about the Belgian ‘wizard’s’ performance against Senegal,” said RTBF, a Belgian media outlet. “His defensive play was disastrous, and his rare attempts at dribbling didn’t amount to much. He’s undoubtedly one of the flops of this World Cup — at least for now.”
Nieuwsblad, Belgium’s second largest newspaper, was just as harsh, writing: “He continued the trend he’d shown in the World Cup so far: a disappointment.”
U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino isn’t likely to pay too much attention to the criticism of Doku, given that the winger ran circles around Team USA in Belgium’s 5-2 blow out of the Americans in March in Atlanta.
EMOTIONS OF THE MOMENT
Disappointment isn’t limited to the media. Trossard and Tielemans’ frustration with each other while trailing Senegal escalated to the point where it took the imposing Lukaku and Nicolas Raskin and a Senegalese player to separate them during the second half hydration break.
“Look, those are the emotions of the moment,” Tielemans said of the confrontation. “We’re all winners. We all want to win. To do things right. To represent our country well, that’s all part of it. That’s part of football.”
The scuffle, said Garcia “shows we have a team with real spirit.”
“Players are allowed to disagree, they’re allowed to trade heated words,” Garcia continued. “Leandro and Youri are two very important players for the Belgian national team. They wanted to win so badly. I don’t even know what the argument was about but I like it.
“I want players who are ready to flip the table when things aren’t going right. Because on the pitch, we need that. We need that fighting spirit.”
And that is why a nation continues to tune in; will the Red Devils deliver a knock out blow to the American dream of an endless World Cup summer or simply square off with each other? Belgium remains must see TV because its fans, like those of Thuis, know they can expect the unexpected.
“I told the players we had to score the 2-1 goal, and then anything could happen,” Garcia after the Senegal match. “Football is about emotions. Coming back and winning under such circumstances can unify the group and make them realize that, until the final whistle blows, anything is possible.”
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