Where the reform comes from
Michel Sablon was assistant coach of the Belgian national team at the World Cups of 1986, 1990 and 1994 and became technical director of the federation in 2001. He began with a stocktaking unusual in European football: he had Belgian development examined scientifically.
Sablon commissioned several universities — Leuven, Ghent, Louvain-la-Neuve, Liège — to analyse Belgian youth football. The central role was played by Werner Helsen, professor of movement science at KU Leuven. Helsen and his students analysed around 1,500 hours of video from youth matches: touches per player, passing lengths, build-up patterns, the share of long balls, intensity. Children wore heart-rate monitors so the load in different playing formats could be compared.
The results were unambiguous. In 11v11 the children had few touches, few decisions, few shots. Belgian youth football played long balls, because the coaches wanted to win and the pitches were too big. The children learned what was needed to win — not what was needed to play football.
From that Sablon drew up a plan, adopted by the federation in 2006. He had first looked around in the Netherlands, France and Germany and learned from Ajax and Barcelona. He exchanged ideas with Matthias Sammer, who was accompanying the German reform at the same time. The vision was a condensation of what worked elsewhere — adapted to a small country without big clubs.
The five pillars of the vision
Small-sided formats, made compulsory
Since the reform Belgian children have played in small formats: 5v5 in the youngest age groups, 8v8 in the transition, 11v11 only from around U13. The reasoning came directly from Helsen's research: more touches, more one-against-one, more shots per child. That was not self-evident in Belgium before the reform, and resistance from clubs was considerable.
The 4-3-3 as a national teaching system
Like the Netherlands, Belgium prescribed a system for all youth teams: a 4-3-3 with an attacking stance. Not because it is the best system, but because a uniform system creates a common language. A Belgian youth player who changed clubs found the same roles. A national U15 coach received players who had all learned in the same system.
The vision also prescribed a playing style: possession, building from the back, dribbling as a desired means, high pressing. Bob Browaeys, a long-serving youth national coach and one of the authors of the vision, said in 2018 that Roberto Martínez's national team played exactly the football the vision had formulated twenty years earlier.
Development before results
The vision redefined the aim of youth departments: not to win matches but to develop players. That was the Ajax principle, made national policy. Tables in the youngest age groups were abolished, coaches were trained to treat results as secondary. As everywhere, implementation was incomplete — but the attitude became the official line.
Sports schools with double training
The federation set up eight sports schools — Topsportscholen — where talented players between 14 and 18 train in the morning in addition to their club training. That doubles the training time without sacrificing school. The sports schools are Belgium's counterpart to Clairefontaine, but broader and spread across the regions. Many players of the golden generation went through them.
A national centre
In Tubize, south of Brussels, the federation's national training centre was built, financed with the proceeds of Euro 2000. The national teams of every age group train there, coach education takes place there, and the vision is taught there.
The clubs: Genk and Anderlecht
The reform set the framework. The players came from the clubs, and two stand out.
Racing Genk
Genk is a club from a former mining town in Limburg with around 65,000 inhabitants. In the 2000s and 2010s its academy produced a density of world-class players unique for a club of that size: Kevin De Bruyne, Thibaut Courtois, Divock Origi, Yannick Carrasco, Christian Benteke, Timothy Castagne, Leandro Trossard, Kalidou Koulibaly, who arrived as a young professional, Wilfred Ndidi, Sander Berge, Leon Bailey, Bilal El Khannouss.
Genk has no catchment area that explains that. What is consistently described: an academy that worked to the vision early, a scouting operation that reached to Africa and Scandinavia, and a first team that used young players consistently because the club could not afford anything else financially. Genk is the Belgian Freiburg — small, patient, dependent on its own development.
Anderlecht
Anderlecht is Belgium's traditional big club, based in Brussels with the largest talent pool in the country. The academy, marketed under the name Purple Talents, produced Vincent Kompany, Romelu Lukaku, Youri Tielemans, Leander Dendoncker, Jérémy Doku, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Zeno Debast and many more. Adnan Januzaj and Charly Musonda left early for England — examples of the Belgian problem that English clubs poach talents at 15 or 16.
Since 2020 Anderlecht has taken a detour: Vincent Kompany returned as player-coach, did not bring sporting success but built in young players before moving to Burnley and then Bayern. The club has been unstable in sporting terms for years; the academy keeps producing.
Standard, Bruges and the U23 teams
Standard Liège produced Marouane Fellaini, Axel Witsel and Michy Batshuayi. Club Brugge developed Charles De Ketelaere and others in the 2020s and is today the financially strongest Belgian club. Both have their own academies following the vision.
Since the 2022/23 season the U23 teams of the big clubs — Club NXT, RSCA Futures, Jong Genk — have played in the Belgian second division, the Challenger Pro League. That is the step Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands took before and Germany did not: men's football for points for 19-year-olds. Belgium pushed it through by federation decision, against resistance from smaller second-division clubs.
The record
The golden generation won no title. Third at the 2018 World Cup is the best result. In 2022 Belgium went out in the group stage, in 2024 in the last sixteen. Critics speak of a wasted generation.
Roberto Martínez, national coach from 2016 to 2022, placed it differently: a country of eleven million led the world rankings for four years, produced eight players with more than a hundred caps and turned twenty of them into coaches. That is the golden generation, regardless of titles.
For the question of development the record is clearer than for the question of titles: from a position with no tournament appearances, Belgium produced within fifteen years a generation that shaped Europe's top leagues. The connection with the reform cannot be proved — but it is more plausible than for any other federation reform in Europe, because Belgium previously had nothing else that could explain the rise.
The criticism
The next generation is thinner. Jérémy Doku, Loïs Openda, Charles De Ketelaere, Amadou Onana, Johan Bakayoko, Zeno Debast — good players, but not De Bruyne, Hazard, Courtois. Whether the reform created a one-off wave or a permanently higher level is open. The vision was adopted in 2006; the children developed entirely under it are now in their mid-twenties.
The poaching to England. Belgian talents go to England at 15 or 16, because the Premier League pays and Brexit has made access harder for EU players but has not stopped it. The final development step then happens at Chelsea or Manchester, not at Genk or Anderlecht. The vision cannot prevent that.
The prescribed 4-3-3 has the same limits as in the Netherlands. It creates a language, but it constrains. Critics in Belgian football ask whether the vision, twenty years after it was formulated, is still the right one.
Implementation was uneven. The big clubs implemented the vision, many small ones did not. The federation could recommend and train, but could not check every village. That is the problem of every national reform.
Sablon is gone, the structure remains. Sablon left the federation and later worked in Singapore. Bob Browaeys stayed a long time. Whether a reform that hung strongly on individuals carries on is the question Belgium will answer over the next ten years.
Application: what you can take from it
This section is our interpretation.
Belgium is the case that shows what a reform looks like when it comes from data rather than from convictions.
Count before you decide
Helsen's students analysed 1,500 hours of video before the federation prescribed a format. A youth coach can do that on a small scale: count the touches of the weakest player in a 7v7 game. Then in a 4v4. The numbers decide, not habit.
Use the children's football reform as an argument
The German reform from 2024/25 follows the Belgian logic of 2006. Anyone meeting resistance to small formats at a club — parents who want tables, coaches who miss 7v7 — has an argument in Belgium: a country did this twenty years ago and produced the best generation in its history.
Double the training time, not the load
The sports schools give Belgian talents a second session in the morning. That is not feasible for amateur clubs — but the principle is: whoever wants more time has to build it into the daily routine, not tack it on to the session. Cooperation with schools, extra coaching in off-peak slots, an additional slot for those who want it.
One language in the club
The prescribed 4-3-3 does transfer to a single club: one system, every age group, the same role descriptions. It does not have to be a 4-3-3. It has to be one.
Abolish results where you can
Belgium scrapped tables in the youngest age groups. Germany followed with the children's football reform. For the age groups above, a club can decide for itself: does the U13 play for results, or does it play for development? Both at once rarely works.
For federations: the transition is part of it
In 2022 Belgium brought U23 teams into the second division, against resistance. Germany has not. For anyone working in federation structures: that is the one structural decision that makes the biggest difference.
What to take away
- Belgium reached no tournament between 2002 and 2012 and topped the world rankings in 2015. In between lies a reform adopted in 2006.
- Michel Sablon had the development examined scientifically — Werner Helsen, KU Leuven, 1,500 hours of video — and derived from it: small-sided formats, a 4-3-3 as a teaching system, development before results, sports schools, a national centre.
- Genk and Anderlecht are the most productive academies: Genk small and patient, Anderlecht with the biggest talent pool in the country.
- Since 2022 U23 teams have played in the second division — the transition step Germany does not have.
- The golden generation won no title. The next generation is thinner. Whether the reform works permanently is open.
- Transferable: count instead of believe, defend small formats, build training time into the daily routine, one language in the club, abolish results where you can.
What Belgium did for a country by federation decision, a club can do for its age groups with Club OS: set a line and see whether it reaches the U9. The decision itself needs no federation, only a board.
FAQ: frequently asked questions
Sources and further reading
- Interviews with Michel Sablon on the reform, among others in the Guardian (2014), Bleacher Report (2018) and the Wall Street Journal (2018).
- Interviews with Bob Browaeys on implementing the vision and its link to the national team.
- Werner Helsen, KU Leuven: publications on the analysis of youth playing formats and on the 10,000-hour model in talent development.
- Royal Belgian Football Association: presentations on the development vision and the centre in Tubize.
- Reports on the introduction of the U23 teams in the Challenger Pro League in 2022.
- CIES Football Observatory: reports on Belgian developing clubs.
A note on the evidence: the description of the reform rests on interviews with those involved and on secondary sources. The exact playing formats and age limits have been adjusted several times since 2006. The connection between the reform and the golden generation's success is plausible but not provable.