Belgium was one of the very first continent European countries to participate in association football. The first practice in Belgium began on the 26th of October 1863, following an Irish student entered the Josephites College in Melle with a ball made of leather. At first, it was a pastime reserved for the elite, but in the years following, association football took over rugby as the most well-known football game. On the 1st of September, 1895, 10 clubs from cricket, athletics and football and cycling formed the Belgian sports board Union Belge des Societes de Sports Athletiques (UBSSA); one year later, UBSSA created the first ever year-long league for Belgian football.
On October 11, 1900 Beerschot AC honorary president Jorge Diaz announced that Antwerp will host a series of challenges between the best European football teams. Following some organisational issues, on April 28, 1901, the pitch at Beerschot was the site of its first competition where the Belgian A-squad and Dutch B-team played in this tournament, the Coupe Vanden Abeele. [13][14The result was that Belgium triumphed,[15] and defeated the Netherlands in the three subsequent matches. FIFA is not recognizing these results since Belgium played several English players. On May 1, 1904, Belgium's Belgians took part in their debut match in official competition, with France on the Stade du Vivier d'Oie in Uccle and their draw resulted in an Evence Coppee Trophy unclaimed. The next day the soccer boards from both countries were included in the seven FIFA founding members. At the time the Belgian team was picked by a selection committee made up of the country's seven or six major clubs. In 1906 the Belgian national team were given the name Red Devils because of their red uniforms. Four years afterward, Scottish ex-footballer William Maxwell took over his former UBSSA committee as manager. In in 1912 UBSSA had solely a football-related governing body and later renamed UBSFA. In during the Great War, the national team played in unrecognized friendly matches that included matches with and against France.
In the 20th Summer Olympics In their debut official Olympics appearance in the 1920 Summer Olympics, they Red Devils won the gold medal on their home turf following an unpopular final where their Czechoslovak opponents left the field. The 1920s saw three Summer Olympics they had decent outcomes (four victories in seven games) and also played their first international match against Argentina. But, in the next 10 years, Belgium lost all of their games at the initial three FIFA World Cup final tournaments. In the words of scholar Richard Henshaw, "[the growth of footballthat was taking place throughout Scandinavia, Central Europe, and South America left Belgium far behind". Even though World War II hindered international football matches in the 1940s Belgian team was still active in non-official matches against teams from other countries that were allies.
Belgium did not qualify for one major tournament in the 1950s and 1960s The 1954 World Cup. Before the tournament kicked off the RBFA was one of the three UEFA founding members. Dutch reporters regarded that draw for the Belgian team for their opening match with England as the biggest shocking result of the day's match as well as Switzerland's win over Italian "football players". The result was that Belgium lost to Italy following defeat in the second group match to Italy at the end of the second (and final) group game. One of the bright spots in the decades were wins over World Cup holders: West Germany in 1954 in addition to Brazil and Brazil in the year 1963. Between them, Belgium defeated Hungary's Golden Team in 1956. A combination of defeat in matches that were competitive, and victory in exhibition matches resulted in the Belgians the title mocked of "world champion of friendly matches".
Its performances improved in the 1970s' early years, under the direction of manager Raymond Goethals. Dressed in white, in the form of White Devils, Belgium had their first victory at the World as well as European Championships at the 1970 World Cup and Euro 1972. In the process of securing this Euro appearance the first time they played defeat of the reigning European Champions Italy with a victory in the quarter-finals in two legs in an aggregate. The final stage was when they placed third, winning their consolation match against Hungary. in 1973, the omission of a goal that could have won the match in their final game of 1974 FIFA World Cup qualification match for UEFA Group 3 cost Belgium their place in the finals. It caused Belgium to be the sole nation in history to not make it to an World Cup final round despite the fact that they did not allow a goal in the qualifying matches. The two subsequent attempts to reach the final were also unsuccessful.
From the second place finish at Euro 1980, the 1980s and the 1990s in the early years are widely regarded as the Belgians' initial golden years. The team was coached by Guy Thys, they achieved their place in the final of the tournament in 1980 by securing an undefeated record during the group stage. In the championship, they lost narrowly their title against West Germany with the score 1-1. Beginning in 1982 with the World Cup, and ending with the 2002 World Cup, the national team was able to qualify over six successive World Cup end stages and generally advanced to the second round. In this time, the players Guy Thys, Paul Van Himst and Robert Waseige all led the Belgian team through into the second round. In addition to individual FIFA awards and a place in the semi-finals in the 1986 World Cup. Following their appearance in their Euro 1980 final, they failed to make it to the subsequent European Championships, with early withdrawals from their participation in 1984 and 2000. In the latter part of 1990 they participated in three friendlies with Morocco, Cyprus and Japan as well as sharing with Japan the 1999 Kirin Cup with Peru during the latter. The best players from the Belgian team in this golden era were sacked from international soccer by the year 2000. On the eve of the World Cup in 2002, Belgium beat reigning champions of the world as well as European champions France. In the 2002 World Cup, Belgium defeated Russia and joined to host countries Japan along with Tunisia to advance to in the 16th round.
Following 2003's World Cup, the team suffered from the loss of more veterans as well as coach Waseige. They failed to make it through five major finals starting from UEFA Euro 2004 until UEFA Euro 2012 in 2012, and had a similar amount of coaches. A win in 2005 against the current European champions Greece did nothing more than provide an occasional sigh of relief. In the meantime the 2005 win, a promising young generation was maturing during the time of 2007's European U-21 Championship; Belgium's squad was selected to participate in the next season's Summer Olympics which took place in Beijing where they Young Red Devils squad finished fourth. Seventeen of them were in the national team's senior squad but did not make any immediate impact. Belgium came with a 2nd (and last) spot during the Kirin Cup in May 2009, but fell to the team ranked 125th by FIFA Armenian team in September of 2009. Following Georges Leekens' second stint as manager of the national team and his assistant Marc Wilmots became the caretaker in May 2012.
After two games as an in the role of interim coach Wilmots was able to take over from Leekens in the role of manager. In the months following Wilmots' appointment, team performances increased, to the point where some foreign media saw it as an additional Belgian golden age. The new Belgian team was without a loss in the group stage for 2014. World Cup finals, and secured Belgium's first-ever spot in the World Cup quarter-finals with a four-match winning streak. Belgium has qualified to play in UEFA Euro 2016 with a game left in October 2015. They also achieved the top position on the FIFA World Rankings for the first time in November of 2015 in order to remain to stay for five consecutive months. The subsequent calendar year Belgium were unable to confirm their position as an outsider at the European Championship with a quarter-final defeat by their 26th-ranked FIFA Welsh team. This led to the RBFA to sack Wilmots. As part of 2018, in the World Cup qualifying allocation, they were the first team in their group. They qualified for the finals in the hands of Spanish director Roberto Martinez, becoming the first European team other than hosts Russia to make it. Belgium was knocked out in the semi-finals against the eventual champions France however, they came third in the game against England. On the 16th of November, 2019 for only the second time in their history, the team was ranked first on in the World Football Elo Ratings, following a 1-4 win away against Russia in the Euro 2020 qualifiers.
Despite their impressive performance in this year's UEFA Euro 2020 qualifiers as well as being thought of as the most likely challenger for to win the European award, this event ended up being a complete failure for Belgium. The country was in Group B with Russia, Denmark and Finland, Belgium easily conquered the group by winning three times. In the knockout stage, Belgium first played the reigning champions Portugal in the last 16 and came through by scoring a thunderous goal by Thorgan Hazard to give Belgium an 1-0 victory. In the quarterfinals, Belgium were again up against their old rivals Italy and lost, but Belgium did not get revenge for their defeat in 2016 after falling again to a 2-2 draw and a goal made by Romelu Lukaku. This ended Belgium's tournament on a sad note.