The way to define a country’s “golden generation” if you are a coach of a national team is to do it warily.
Most golden generations never become champions and too much gilding of their reputations can become a distraction.
But the phrase is used regularly these days to describe the two countries who meet in Brussels on Sunday night, the top and third teams in Group B of Euro 2016.
Both are emerging from long periods absent from major championship finals and both live in the shadow of neighbours – the Netherlands and England, respectively – who hold a powerful sense of their own high status in the world game.
Belgium’s “Red Devils” also see a little of themselves in the roaring “Dragons of Wales”, so says their captain, Vincent Kompany, as revealed by Welsh midfielder Aaron Ramsey.
“I met Vincent a while back and he told me Wales reminded him of the Belgium team of five years ago,” Ramsey said. “Coming from him, that was a real compliment.”
Kompany, who will miss today’s confrontation with injury, was specific in his dates.
Five years ago, Belgium had just failed to qualify for a World Cup for the second time in succession and they had slipped outside the top 50 in the Fifa ranking.
There were grounds for optimism, though, and a renaissance.
Kompany was at the vanguard of a group of younger players coming through in the local league, who were heavily coveted abroad.
Their names are now household, their price tags lavish: Axel Witsel, for whom Zenit Saint Petersburg paid about €40 million (Dh146m); Eden Hazard, who joined Chelsea for a similar fee in 2012; Thibaut Courtois, Hazard’s Chelsea colleague and the goalkeeper who helped make Atletico Madrid Spanish champions last May; and the list goes on.
For a nation with a population of fewer than 12 million people, Belgium at present punch well above their weight in terms of the individual profile of their players in elite club football, which is as good a measure as any of the goldenness of a generation.
A good example is the defensive unit Belgium took to the World Cup in Brazil – their first major tournament for 12 years.
They reached the last eight with defenders that included four players with freshly minted winners’ medals from the top three leagues in Europe: Courtois and Toby Alderweireld (Atletico), Kompany (Manchester City) and Daniel van Buyten (Bayern Munich).
Up forward, coach Marc Wilmots has a range of choices and an abundance of quick, nimble creative players: Hazard, foremost, as well as Kevin Mirallas, Kevin de Bruyne, Dries Mertens, Nacer Chadli and Adnan Januzaj.
Belgium are at a rare point in their modern footballing history where from over the border in the Netherlands, a country hugely proud of its football culture, the fruits of Belgium’s youth development are regarded with envy.
There is not a lot England, who strut proprietorially around British football, might envy about Wales.
Certainly not the long record of non-participation in tournament competition, which stretches back to a quarter-final in the European championship of 1976.
But there are three or four citizens of Wales’s population of just over three million who would likely secure a place in the English national team: Ramsey, certainly, and possibly Ashley Williams, the Swansea City central defender.
A case might also be made for a fit and in-form Joe Allen of Liverpool. Then there is Gareth Bale, the most costly footballer in the history of the sport.
Should Wales make their way to France for Euro 2016, Bale, for whom Real Madrid paid close to €100m in 2013, will be their standard-bearer, as Hazard will be Belgium’s.
“People talk about Bale and Hazard,” said Chris Coleman, the Wales manager, “and they say Wales are a one-man team and if Hazard doesn’t perform, Belgium don’t perform.”
Coleman is reluctant to buy into that idea any more than Wilmots is to think his Devils are dependent on the Chelsea player, but acknowledges that Bale’s speed is his key weapon, one that will unnerve a Belgian defence lacking Kompany and the injured Barcelona defender Thomas Vermaelen.
“Belgium have got quality in every position but they’re not invincible,” said Coleman, who has been using the phrase golden generation through Wales unbeaten run in qualifying.
“Our mentality now is we don’t just accept losing. We’ve worked hard at being harder, meaner, more streetwise.”
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