Andre Henning was a youth coach in his native Germany when he watched the likes of Felix Denayer and Arthur van Doren Belgium is up and coming. “Unfortunately, I saw it coming [for Germany], they can make history and dominate for ten years. They are the best players at that level,” Germany coach Henning said on the eve of the FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup 2023 final between the two teams.
Defending champions Belgium have entered their prime and their legacy is secure. Between 2018 and 2021, the Belgian team won World Cup, European Cup and Olympic gold medals.
So, what keeps them going?
“We can do something unique in Belgium, which has never been done by a Belgian sports team, and that’s what drives us today. We know we’re getting old, but that’s what keeps us going,” Striker Florent van Auber told ESPN after their shootout semi-final win over the Netherlands.
“We built this team almost from the ground up,” captain Felix Denayer told ESPN. “The fact that we can continue to do that with this team is very, very special. We’re very proud and hopefully we can add another one on Sunday.”
Overcoming Obstacles and Evolving
Like any team at the top of the game, Belgium have had a goal on their shoulders over the past few years and have had to weather some adversity. Perhaps the biggest blow came at this World Cup, when an unfortunate knee injury meant star Alexander Hendricks was unable to play in the knockout stages of the tournament.
The importance of Hendricks to this Belgian side cannot be underestimated. He was the team’s top scorer in each of their previous three gold medal-winning seasons – seven goals at the last World Cup, five at the 2019 European Championships and a surprising 35 at the Tokyo Olympics 14 of the goals.
How do you replace a guy who scored 40% of your goals in the Olympics?
“That’s the beauty of team sports. In every game, everyone else steps up,” Denayer said. “Sometimes it’s Tom Boone (their top scorer in the tournament with seven goals), sometimes it’s Vincent (Warnasch, widely regarded as the best goalkeeper in the world), sometimes It’s the other guys. Every player can step up and make an impact, and that’s what makes us different as a team.”
The key here is always evolving. For a side that had grown accustomed to Hendrix’s long shots on target from the edge of the box, Belgium had to develop into a side with other avenues of scoring. They have scored just four goals from 25 corners in the World Cup so far, scoring 14 goals in the process.
“We lost one of the best short corners in the world,” said manager Michel van den Heuvel, “but we had an important group of players come forward.”
the value of experience
Of the 18-man Belgium squad in Odisha this year, 11 have capped more than 200 caps for their national team and four have over 100 caps. It has been said that there is no substitute for experience at the big tournaments and this Belgian team continues to prove they were right.
In the semi-final against the Netherlands, Belgium fell behind twice. But there was no sign of panic or frenzied sprinting that Indian hockey fans are used to seeing. “Experience helped. We kept our composure. We went into the game in the second half and our experience helped us keep believing until the end,” the captain said.
Whether it’s Van Doren’s calm defense, Cédric Charleur’s dynamism in the box, Nicolas De Keppel’s crucial equalizer in the knockout rounds, or John John Door’s ability to know when and where, this team The value of the team’s combined experience of nearly 4,000 international matches is invaluable.
This experience is also why if they are in penalty shootouts, Belgium don’t panic and always end up on the right side of the result. In fact, they won the 2018 World Cup and 2021 Olympic finals on penalties.
“We’ve got a lot of experience, some guys who did well in penalty shootouts and a really good goalkeeper, which is great because penalty shootouts are always a mental exercise,” Van Auber said. Nash) can make saves, so for us, we know that even if we score two or three goals, he will make saves for us.”
Van Aubel says many of them are getting older now, so the desire to be Belgium’s most decorated sports team keeps driving them. Denayer just calls it an experience.
Now, Andre Henning saw the boys years ago and predicted they would be Germany’s next hockey powerhouse on Sunday. “They’re in their 30s, but modern sport shows that people in their 30s can play at an absolutely world-class level. They’re not fragile, they’re weaker, they don’t have any disadvantages now,” he said.
For this group of world-class Belgian men, often referred to as the golden generation, there is an opportunity for more trophies. Can the defending champions become an even more storied team?
