{"id":23606,"date":"2026-06-23T18:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T18:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/23606\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T18:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T18:53:13","slug":"weve-not-been-up-to-the-task-kevin-de-bruyne-bemoans-belgiums-silly-mistakes-amid-threat-of-disastrous-early-world-cup-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/23606\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;We&#8217;ve not been up to the task&#8217; &#8211; Kevin De Bruyne bemoans Belgium&#8217;s &#8216;silly mistakes&#8217; amid threat of disastrous early World Cup exit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While the connection between De Bruyne and Lukaku has defined Belgium&#8217;s &#8216;Golden Generation&#8217;, questions are being asked about whether the partnership still functions at the highest level. Lukaku started the 0-0 draw against Iran but failed to find the net, leading to calls for Charles De Ketelaere to be returned to the starting XI.<\/p>\n<p>De Bruyne, however, maintains that personal relationships must take a backseat to the collective goal of reaching the knockout rounds. \u201cEveryone knows how close we [he and Lukaku] have been for years, but now it\u2019s the time to focus on the team,\u201d the midfielder concluded. \u201cWe\u2019ve not been up to the task, but we can become so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the connection between De Bruyne and Lukaku has defined Belgium&#8217;s &#8216;Golden Generation&#8217;, questions are being asked about&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,5808,2176,10545,1849],"class_list":["post-23606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-k-de-bruyne","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-vs-belgium","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116800939887927582","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}