Years before the existence of the FIFA World Cup, the highest honour in world football was to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games and as hosts of the games in 1920, Belgium achieved just that, although it was through very bizarre circumstances.  Played on a knockout basis, the competiton was 16 teams strong to start off with, however Switzerland bailed out after the draw was made, giving France a bye and sending them through to the quarter finals without them having to do anything.  Poland meanwhile, forgot to turn up, which benefited Belgium who likewise proceeded to the next round without kicking a ball. In the end, the tournament kicked off with 14 participating teams.

 

On route to the gold medal match, Belgium beat Spain, putting 3 goals past a 19 year old Ricardo Zamora, and then eliminated the Netherlands before facing Czechoslovakia in their first ever international tournament. Despite this fact, the Czechs had conceded only one goal in the lead up to the final and scored 15.  The environment was hostile toward the Czechs however, as the Belgian media had portrayed them as a World War I aggressor state, and 40,000 Belgians packed the stadium and hung from surrounding trees, baying for Czechoslovakian blood. The final was incredibly anarchic, and became the only ever time that an international final has been abandoned.

 

The referee of the match, John Lewis, had created a name for himself in England as one of the nations most respected officials, having commanded three FA Cup finals as well as the 1908 Olympic final between Great Britain and Denmark. After six minutes, Belgiums Coppee put the team ahead through a penalty and Larnoe added a second in the 30th.  The controversy really hit high gear when the goal was disputed but allowed to stand. When Czech defender Karel Steiner was given his marching orders nine minutes later for assaulting Coppee, their captain Karel Pesek pulled the entire team off the field in protest and they refused to return to play. After 15 minutes of tense negotiations, Lewis blew for full time thus awarding the match and the gold medal to the Belgians. This sparked a pitch invasion by the home crowd which was led by Belgian soldiers. In chaotic scenes, they threatened the Czech players and took to tearing up a Czech flag, proving that the Olympic Committees decision to not invite the likes of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, the countries that actually did spark The Great War, was perhaps wise despite not being in the spirit of the Olympics.

 

The Czech team complained that Lewis was favoring the home side as he had been a victim of violence at a match in Prague and wanted revenge by giving the Belgian crowd the wrong impression of Czech football, making them look dirtier than they really were. In addition, Lewis was 72 years old when he refereed the match (he was a member of the first ever Blackburn Rovers team!) and as such he allegedly struggled to keep up with the play. They also complained that the linesmen, another Englishman, Charles Wreford-Brown who was a famous Corinthians player, colluded with Lewis to ensure a result for Belgium and that they were intimidated by the soldiers that lined the field during play, but it did them no good. Their protests and requests for a full replay were dismissed and they were disqualified entirely, going home without any medal at all despite reaching the final and playing brilliantly to get there.

 

The 1920 Olympic Games gold medal match was the first to be designated by Jules Rimet and FIFA as a world championship match, therefore, officially, Belgium are the first world champions. In 1921, Belgium became one of the first teams to pay “lost time” payments to their players as compensation for having to take time off from their jobs to play.Their performance in the 1924 Olympics however was not noteworthy (they lost 8-1 to Sweden) and in the 1928 edition they toppled Luxemburg 5-3 before losing their first ever intercontinental match to Argentina, 6-3. Belgium were participants of the first World Cup in 1930, but failed to progress past the first round.

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Star player: Raymond Braine, dob 28 April 1907, pob Antwerp, Belgium

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Belgiums first ever professional player after transferring to Sparta Prague in 1930, Braine played 54 matches for his country and with 26 goals he is Belgiums 5th all-time top scorer. He played his club football with Beerschot, helping them to a second place finish in his debut season in 1923 and playing alongside his brother, Pierre. The brothers also played together for Belgium at the 1928 Olympics. His first league championship arrived in 1924 and was followed by three more in 1925, 1926 and 1928. At that time, professionalism did not exist in Belgium although some players, like Braine, received backhand payments based on performance. Others had to supplement their income by opening cafes. So many Belgian players opened cafes that the Belgian FA eventually barred players from opening or working in them, unless their parents owned one for at least 5 years. Having only just opened one himself, Braine took this as his cue to play abroad so he signed for Sparta Prague. With them, he won two Czech First League titles (1932 and 1936) and collected a Mitropa Cup in 1935 to boot, while finishing as top scorer in the league twice. Braine by now spoke fluent Czech and was so talented, that the Czechoslovak FA tried to pay him 100,000 Koruna to become a Czech citizen so he could play for their national team in the 1934 World Cup, but he refused. Instead, he waited until the 1938 World Cup where he lined up for his true home nation, Belgium. In 1937, Braine once again returned to Beerschot where he won the league twice more. He briefly signed for La Forestoise before retiring.