“There is no such thing as a favourite. It is going to be very competitive”
How has your team evolved since the World Cup and the elimination of Brazil in that remarkable quarter-final?
It was one of the targets after the World Cup to grow. We have done that. In the qualification campaign for the Euros, we were able to get an intense feeling in all of our games. We got 30 points out of the ten games, something that had never been done before in Belgium.
We used a bigger group than the one we had in the World Cup. I felt that we needed a deeper squad, so that whenever we missed a player we could still perform in a similar way. The journey of the last two years has allowed us to get more players in each position with a real competitive edge for those starting positions.
At the start of the century Belgium were hard working yet unglamorous; at Russia 2018, they played some of the most exciting football in the tournament. Has the perception about the Belgian national team changed?
Slowly, there is an understanding of the Belgian team, but it goes alongside people and football fans seeing the growth of our players in their clubs as well. The moves of Thibaut Courtois and Eden Hazard have been very interesting. Kevin De Bruyne is a pivotal player at a winning Manchester City side. To be able to see Dries Mertens breaking records in Napoli, to see Romelu Lukaku going to
