- AFP
- The newspapers have offered plenty of coverage of Belgium’s World Cup team—but what about Belgium itself?
Television blazed the trail, spicing up its Olympics coverage with heartwarming stories of the arduous treks to glory undertaken by top competitors. Some of these competitors were well worth being introduced to, others not so much. A childhood passed in a snowbound village above the tree line often nurtures more fortitude than personality.
As it happens, Belgium is a country the size of South Carolina with a population 1/30th as large as ours, and it’s in serious peril of falling apart. Yahoo Sports posted the sort of story on Belgium that would have been welcome in a Chicago paper. “Belgium citizens unite for soccer team while country’s future is in jeopardy,” was the headline. The story discussed how little French-speaking Wallonia and Flemish-speaking Flanders have in common (aside from soccer, possibly nothing), and contemplated the possibility that the country will simply break up. In 2011 Belgium set a world record when it held national elections and then took 353 days to put together a coalition government to run the country.
