Links between Belgian and Irish football go back centuries

On the October 26th 1863 when Irish student Cyril Bernard Morragh turned up at the Josephites College of Melle with a leather football tucked under his arm he could hardly have imagined that he would be credited with introducing soccer to Belgium.
The country took to the game with such relish that 158 years later Belgium return to Lansdowne Road officially recognised as the as the world’s best team for over three years. Despite this even the most fervent supporters of the Red Devils do not expect them to end 2022 by winning the World Cup for the simple reason that Belgium never actually win anything, remaining the only country to have topped the Fifa rankings without having won a major trophy.
Some of this can be put down to simple bad luck with Belgium failing to progress to the 1974 World Cup finals despite not losing a game or even conceding a goal during qualifying. And even the gold medal that they won when hosting the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp was shrouded in controversy when Belgium’s opponents Czechoslovakia s …

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