{"id":670714,"date":"2026-01-03T07:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670714\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T07:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:43:12","slug":"belgian-coach-hails-slovenians-dominance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670714\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgian coach hails Slovenian\u2019s dominance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Belgian football coach and former player Hein Vanhaezebrouck is also passionate about cycling, something that comes as no surprise given Belgium&#8217;s deep-rooted cycling heritage. That is why he wanted to weigh in the current state of the sport in a recent interview.<\/p>\n<p>Pogacar has millions of fans around the world, and Vanhaezebrouck seems to be one of them.\u00a0\u201cI am a big fan,\u201d he said in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wielerkrant.be\/nieuws\/2026-01-02\/vanhaezebrouck-vol-lof-voor-pogacar--en-hoe-evenepoel-ooit-de-tour-de-france-kan-winnen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">quotes collected by Wieler Krant<\/a>. \u201cA rider like Pogacar is born once every fifty years. But it can\u2019t always be Pogacar attacking from fifty kilometres out. There has to be a battle.\u201dPogacar is the best rider in the world, and he is almost unbeatable in every race he starts in, <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/tour-de-france\" title=\"Tour de France\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tour de France<\/a> included. \u201cWe have to be honest: as long as he takes part in the Tour \u2013 and is ready to compete for the GC \u2013 I don\u2019t think anyone else can win,\u201d he said bluntly.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nCan Evenepoel challenge Pogacar?<a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/cycling\/i-want-to-be-better-than-him-remco-evenepoel-wants-to-beat-tadej-pogacar-and-has-clear-ambition-of-winning-tour-de-france\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Remco Evenepoel recently stated that he is very motivated to improve his level in 2026 with his new team Red Bull &#8211; BORA &#8211; hansgrohe<\/a> and wants to reach Pogacar&#8217;s level to be a  real contender at the Tour de France this year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to be better than him. That\u2019s very difficult, we all know that. But that\u2019s the reason I came here. To take those steps. To go over it, on it and over it. That will take a lot of strength, but I\u2019m very motivated and I really needed this new step to open up a kind of ceiling. I hope I can really break through this year,\u201d Evenepoel said a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>Jean-Marie Dedecker, mayor of Middelkerke, shared his opinion. \u201cThe injury of Pogacar does show that he can also drop out once,\u201d Dedecker said. \u201cIn any case, I wonder whether he can keep this up for another seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dedecker sees a clear strategy for Evenepoel. \u201cThen I look at Evenepoel. Make sure you\u2019re ready. Make sure you\u2019re better than Vingegaard at the moment when Pogacar is not there,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgian football coach and former player Hein Vanhaezebrouck is also passionate about cycling, something that comes as no&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,16151,79,16152,20680,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-670714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-remco-evenepoel","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tadej-pogacar","12":"tag-tour-de-france","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115830050186984859","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}