World Cup ’94 : WORLD CUP USA ’94 / GROUP F PREVIEW : Flashy Import : Belgium Spices Its Play With Addition of a Croatian-Born Striker
Belgium’s Diables Rouges--Red Devils--have never had a colorful style to match their name.
Typically solid in goal, tough on defense and steady at midfield, Belgium has performed respectably in international competitions but lacked the dash of its neighbor, the Netherlands. The Red Devils made it to the second round of the 1982 World Cup, the semifinals in 1986 and the second round again in 1990, but they lacked the finisher who could ignite their offense.
“It’s always been our problem: We just don’t possess the strikers to give us that little edge at top level in international football,” Coach Paul Van Himst said.
This time they might change their dull image.
The addition of Croatian-born center-forward Josip Weber, who led Belgium’s national league in scoring the last two seasons, gives Van Himst’s team a spark. With Weber up front and Enzo Scifo’s talent for reading plays in the midfield, Belgium might make some noise in Group F and in the tournament.
Weber, 29, is a natural scorer who has been compared to the great German forward, Gerd Mueller. He rarely helps on defense and disappears for stretches of games, but he’s always lurking around the goal. He scored 131 goals in six seasons with Cercle Brugge of the First Division, including 26 in 1991-92 and 31 in 1992-93, and he has averaged an astonishing 1.5 goals a game over the last three seasons.
The only doubt surrounding Weber concerned his citizenship. Weber, who became a Belgian citizen in March, played three games for Croatia’s national team against Australia in July, 1992. According to the rules of FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, he would thus have been ineligible to play for Belgium; however, FIFA ruled those games were played before the Croatian federation was readmitted to FIFA.
His selection was criticized by Belgians who opposed picking naturalized players over native sons, but there’s no disputing Belgian-born players’ ineptitude in top-level tournaments. Striker Luc Nilis has scored more than 100 goals for Anderlecht in six years but has no goals in 23 international appearances--and he was the only Belgian among the top 10 scorers in the First Division this season.
Their feeble offense almost cost the Red Devils their World Cup berth. They began qualifying play with six consecutive victories but scored one goal in losing to Wales and Romania. They made the final field with a scoreless tie against Czechoslovakia, after scoring only 16 goals in their 10 games.
Van Himst might have fortified the offense by selecting Brazilian-born striker Luis Oliveira, a naturalized Belgian citizen, but he ignored Oliveira as a disciplinary measure. Oliveira had criticized the team after a 1-0 loss to Malta in February and had demanded to be in the starting lineup.
Instead, Van Himst chose eight defenders and several defensive midfielders. Oliveira was left off the World Cup roster.
Michel Preud’homme, 35, has long been one of Europe’s top goalkeepers. He missed the 1986 World Cup because of his involvement in a game-fixing scandal. The defense, anchored by central defender Philippe Albert and Georges Grun, a rugged tackler who plays for Parma in Italy, allowed opponents only five goals in qualifying play. Franky Van der Elst, one of the best players ever to wear the red jersey, fills a defensive role at midfield or on the back line.
Scifo is the creative spark in the midfield and is skilled at free kicks. This will be his third World Cup. He will play alongside Lorenzo Staelens, an industrious player. “He’s strong in the tackle, uses the ball intelligently and he never stops running,” Van Himst said of Staelens. “He and Franky Van der Elst are the engine of the team.”
The spark plug is Danny Boffin, nicknamed “Speedy Gonzalez” for his acceleration and charges up the left side of the midfield.
Said Staelens: “We are unlikely to win the World Cup, but we have the potential to be quarterfinalists at the very least.”
