Of all these peoples, the Belgians are the strongest

A reflection on Football, Mythology and National Identity at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Who are we?

Along the shore of a Norwegian fjord, they stand posed as warriors. Longships float behind them. Dark clouds gather above the water. Swords hang at their sides. Erling Haaland stares into the camera, not like a footballer preparing for a World Cup, but like a Viking preparing to sail towards unknown shores. 

It became one of the defining images surrounding the 2026 World Cup. Norway’s campaign did more than introduce a squad. It told a story.

The message was immediately understandable, even to people who knew little about football. These were not merely athletes. They were presented as heirs to a tradition of explorers, warriors and adventurers. A contemporary football team was connected to a national myth stretching back centuries.

Before the tournament had even begun, Norway had already answered an important question: Who are we? To me, supporting Belgium, it raised an interesting question: If Norway has the Vikings, what story belongs to Belgium?

For years, Belgium’s Red Devils were among the most talented national teams in the world of football. They produced generations of remarkable players and briefly stood near the summit of the international game. Yet when it came to symbolism, mythology and national storytelling, Belgium often appeared strangely uncertain about itself. That uncertainty says something about football. But it also says something about Belgium.

Football Is About More Than Football

International football has always been about more than tactics, formations and results. The most memorable national teams are rarely remembered only for what they won. They are also remembered for what they came to represent. Brazil became associated with the beauty and creativity of Samba football. Germany with discipline and efficiency. Argentina with passion and defiance. New Zealand turned the haka into one of the most recognisable rituals in world sport. Scotland still draws strength from the story of William Wallace, regardless of how closely the popular image corresponds to history. Norway has its Vikings.

Such stories endure because they give people something larger than themselves. A nation is not only a political entity. It is also a collection of shared memories, symbols and narratives. International football becomes one of the stages on which those stories are performed.

They do not matter because every detail is literally true. They matter because they help people answer a simple question: Who are we? Or perhaps an even more important one: Who would we like to be?

Myths Are Not Perfect History

One of Norway’s newest football symbols illustrates this perfectly. During the World Cup, the Norwegian players began celebrating victories by sitting together and mimicking the motion of rowing a Viking longship. The gesture quickly spread through stadiums and across social media. Supporters copied it, broadcasters replayed it, and the collective rowing became almost as recognisable as the original Viking photographs.

Then a Norwegian supporter went viral for refusing to join in. His objection was wonderfully dry: the Vikings, he argued, had not rowed across the Atlantic. They had sailed. Strictly speaking, he had a point.

Viking ships carried oars and could certainly be rowed, particularly near coasts, on rivers or when there was little wind. But the great voyages associated with Viking exploration — to Iceland, Greenland and North America — depended primarily on sails.

Yet the historical objection did little to weaken the celebration. That was because the gesture was never really a history lesson. Within seconds, it communicated adventure, courage, exploration and a collective relationship with the past. Centuries of complicated history had been condensed into one image that everyone could understand.

That is what myths do. They simplify. They romanticise. They occasionally get things wrong. The real question is not whether every detail is historically perfect. It is whether people recognise themselves in the story being told.

A Country Uncomfortable With Its Own Mythology

Belgium has always had a complicated relationship with national identity. Unlike many European nations, it was not constructed around one language, ethnicity or historical narrative. The country contains several identities that coexist, overlap and occasionally compete: Flemish, Walloon, Brussels, Dutch-speaking, French-speaking, German-speaking.

Regional identities often appear stronger than the national identity. Belgian history itself is frequently narrated through regional perspectives rather than through one overarching national story.

While other countries actively cultivate founding myths, Belgium often seems more comfortable with compromise, nuance, surrealism and self-deprecation.

This may explain why many Belgians struggle to answer a deceptively simple question: What story does Belgium tell about itself? And yet there is one place where those divisions regularly seem to recede. Football.

For ninety minutes, the usual boundaries become less important. Supporters from Bruges, Antwerp, Charleroi, Liège, Ghent and Brussels stand beside one another. Language matters less. Politics matters less. The Red Devils remain one of the few collective experiences shared by large numbers of people across the country. That is precisely why the story surrounding them matters.

The Most Famous Red Devil

Curiously, Belgium’s most recognisable Red Devil may not be a player at all. His name is Nicolas Dardenne. Most football supporters know him simply as Obelgix.

Dressed as a Belgian version of Obelix from the famous Asterix comic books, he has followed the national team around the world for years: European Championships, World Cups and qualification matches. Wherever Belgium plays, he seems to appear.

During the 2026 World Cup, his role became more prominent than ever. He chronicled his journey across the United States, appeared in reports about Belgian supporters and was repeatedly presented to an international audience as the country’s most visible superfan. One American profile described him as “part mascot, part one-man cheering section”.

He had become more than a colourful face in the crowd. He was part of Belgium’s image abroad. Dardenne himself remained more cautious. He resisted suggestions that he should be called Belgium’s number-one supporter, pointing out that others had followed the national side just as faithfully, or for even longer.

That modesty made the symbolism more persuasive. Obelgix was not appointed by the Belgian football federation. No marketing agency invented him. He emerged organically from supporter culture. And that is remarkable for one simple reason.

Historically speaking, Obelix has almost nothing to do with modern Belgium. The fictional character comes from Armorica, in what is now Brittany in France. Internationally, Asterix and Obelix are primarily associated with French popular culture. Yet Belgian supporters embraced a version of him as one of their own. Why?

Perhaps because Obelix embodies qualities that many Belgians instinctively recognise. A small people surrounded by larger powers. Stubborn. Defiant. Fond of food, drink and celebration. And never particularly interested in surrender. The symbolism may have begun as a joke. But during this World Cup, it no longer looked entirely accidental.

The Forgotten Belgae

Two thousand years before Belgium existed, Julius Caesar wrote about the tribes inhabiting much of present-day Belgium and northern France. Among them were the Belgae.

In his Commentaries on the Gallic War, Caesar described them with a phrase that would survive for centuries: 

Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae.

Of all these peoples, the Belgians are the strongest.

The sentence is famous. Yet many Belgians today barely know it. That is surprising because the word Belgae eventually helped give modern Belgium its name. When the country became independent in 1830, its founders deliberately drew on that ancient reference. The new state sought historical roots predating the surrounding modern nations and connected itself to an older world.

Yet that connection gradually faded from public consciousness. Most Belgians know Asterix and Obelix. Many know Ambiorix, the Belgic chieftain who resisted Rome. Far fewer realise that their country’s name emerged from the same historical landscape. And yet the story remains hidden in plain sight: On passports. In history books. In the country’s very name. Seen in that light, the popularity of Obelgix becomes even more intriguing.

Supporters probably did not consciously connect him to Caesar or the ancient Belgae. Nor did they need to. Symbols rarely emerge from historical precision. They become powerful because people instinctively recognise something in them.

Norway’s Vikings do not need to reproduce every detail of medieval seafaring to resonate today. Belgium does not need a literal reconstruction of the ancient Belgae either.

History provides the raw material. Football gives it a contemporary meaning.

The Golden Generation Without a Myth

Belgium’s so-called Golden Generation is often remembered for what it failed to win. No European Championship. No World Cup. No major final. That judgement is understandable. Elite sport is ultimately measured in trophies. Yet it risks overlooking something important. Between 2014 and 2022, Belgium possessed one of the strongest squads in its history. Vincent Kompany, Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Thibaut Courtois and Romelu Lukaku.

For nearly a decade, Belgium consistently competed with the world’s leading teams. I stood among Belgian supporters when Belgium defeated Brazil at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. What I remember most is not the tactics. Not even the result. It was the feeling. For a brief moment, Belgium seemed to see itself differently. Not as a small country hoping to survive, but as a country capable of standing alongside football’s giants. And yet something remained missing. This team had world-class players. But did it have a world-class story? Many great national teams possess both. Belgium had the talent. It never fully found the mythology.

Belgium’s Road Through the World Cup

The 2026 World Cup offered an opportunity to reconsider that question. Belgium’s campaign did not unfold like a polished heroic narrative. The team began with two draws, against Egypt and Iran. The performances revived familiar doubts about an ageing core, an incomplete transition and a side still dependent on the names associated with its Golden Generation.

A 5–1 victory over New Zealand changed the atmosphere and allowed Belgium to finish first in its group. But the tournament remained difficult to interpret. Was this the emergence of something new, or merely another temporary revival?

The round-of-32 match against Senegal made the picture even less straightforward.

Belgium trailed 2–0 and appeared to be heading home. Then the match changed almost without warning. Goals arrived in a sequence that seemed to defy the rhythm of everything that had preceded them. Belgium eventually won 3–2 after extra time, with Youri Tielemans converting a penalty in the 125th minute.

The comeback showed that the players had not given up.

But it would be too easy to present it as proof that Belgium had suddenly become a perfectly united team or discovered a coherent new identity. For long periods, Belgium had struggled. The match was also one of those rare occasions when football becomes gloriously irrational: a seemingly lost contest transformed by moments that appeared almost out of nowhere.

Sometimes football is not a tidy metaphor. Sometimes football is simply mad.

What remained, however, was the public impression of a side that had survived when elimination seemed certain. Whether through resilience, opportunity, luck or some mixture of all three, Belgium was still in the tournament.

Americana

The following match produced a clearer statement. Belgium faced the United States, one of the tournament’s host nations, amid controversy over the participation of American forward Folarin Balogun. He had previously been shown a red card, but political intervention and FIFA’s handling of the case allowed him to play against Belgium. Belgian midfielder Nicolas Raskin later acknowledged that the dispute had provided additional motivation.

Among Belgian supporters, the episode created a sense that the smaller country was entering a contest against more than eleven players.

Obelgix carried and repeatedly displayed a symbolic red card directed at Donald Trump. Other supporters joined marches towards the stadium holding red cards of their own. When Belgium won 4–1, eliminating the hosts, the result acquired a meaning beyond qualification.

The football had been convincing. But the surrounding story was equally powerful.

Belgium — small, divided, often underestimated — had challenged the host nation and prevailed. Not for the first time, international sympathy appeared to have shifted towards the Belgians. The old image of a small people resisting a larger power had resurfaced, not through an official campaign, but through the unpredictable theatre of the tournament.

Romelu Lukaku’s imitation of Trump’s familiar dance during the celebrations added a characteristically playful note. Belgium’s defiance was accompanied, as it so often is, by humour.

And the end of a dream

By the quarter-final against Spain, the language surrounding the team had begun to change. Coach Rudi Garcia openly embraced Belgium’s position as the outsider. He acknowledged that almost everyone expected Spain to progress, but insisted that his players believed they could reach the next round. The claim was partly motivational theatre. Coaches are expected to express confidence. Yet Garcia repeatedly returned to ideas of belief, resistance and the group’s ability to remain in difficult matches.

Belgium ultimately lost 2–1. Spain scored late, ending the Red Devils’ campaign in the quarter-finals. Belgium had competed, equalised by scoring the first goal against Spain in this tournament, and remained close enough to imagine another unlikely escape, but this time there was none.

No trophy. No miracle ending. Nor should a respectable quarter-final automatically be transformed into another national epic.

Belgium’s performances had been uneven. The team had sometimes impressed and sometimes struggled. The transition between generations remained unfinished. One successful match did not resolve every question about Belgian football. But the tournament had offered moments in which a shared Belgian identity became visible. Not as a permanent truth.

Not as a carefully managed brand. As a possibility. In comebacks, humour, grievance, stubbornness and the spectacle of supporters accompanying their team across a continent, fragments of a story appeared.

Why Myths Matter

This is not merely a cultural observation. Research in sports psychology suggests that teams can benefit when athletes strongly identify with a shared collective identity. The work of Belgian sports psychologist Filip Boen and others has explored how shared leadership, values and a strong sense of “us” can contribute to cohesion and resilience.

Stories do not score goals. Symbols do not make saves. Historical costumes cannot determine tactics. But stories give meaning to collective effort. They help transform individuals into something larger: A team, a community, sometimes even a nation. That is the real power of mythology. It connects people to something beyond themselves.

Norway’s Viking campaign achieved this before a ball had been kicked. It gave players and supporters an image in which they could recognise themselves.

This is who we are. This is where we come from. This is what we represent. Belgium’s World Cup story developed differently. It was less coherent and less carefully designed. It emerged from results, setbacks, controversy, supporter culture and the wider conversation around the team. That may make it less marketable. It may also make it more authentically Belgian.

Remembering What Was Already There

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Norway’s Viking campaign is not that it created a story. It did not. The story already existed. Norway simply remembered it, adapted it and gave it a new stage.

Even the inaccurate rowing celebration became part of the process. Historical myths do not survive because every detail is correct. They survive because each generation finds a new way to inhabit them.

Belgium’s mythology is more elusive. It is less organised. Less official. More ironic. It frequently emerges from below rather than being imposed from above. It lives in a supporter’s costume rather than a federation’s branding strategy. In a spontaneous red card rather than a carefully tested slogan. In an extraordinary comeback that no one could quite explain. In a national team that often appears most Belgian when confronted with doubt, larger powers or the expectation that it will fail.

The Belgians are also regularly described as Burgundian: people attached to food, drink, companionship and the pleasures of the table. In that respect, Obelgix may be an even more appropriate representative than anyone realised. The resemblance to the final banquet of an Asterix adventure is hard to miss. After the battle comes the feast — and, this being Belgium, probably an argument over who ordered the wrong beer.

But beneath the humour lies a serious point. Perhaps Belgium does not need to manufacture an entirely new national myth. Perhaps it already possesses fragments of one. A forgotten people. A famous sentence. A fictional Gaul adopted by real supporters. A small country accustomed to living between larger neighbours. A football team that briefly allows its different communities to recognise one another.

That does not mean Julius Caesar was an objective historian. His description of the Belgae served his own political and military narrative. Nor does an ancient tribal society offer a straightforward identity for a diverse modern democracy. History is never that simple. Mythology does not need to be simple either. It needs only to offer a story in which people can recognise something meaningful.

Norway arrived at the World Cup already carrying such a story. Belgium discovered fragments of one along the way. Perhaps the country never lacked a football mythology. Perhaps it merely forgot where to look.

Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae – Of all these peoples, the Belgians are the strongest.

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