Arthur Theate spoke in a long interview with RTBF. He notably returned to the defense of the Red Devils, often criticized when things go badly.
Belgium qualified for the group stage of the 2026 World Cup, but in a more difficult way than one might have expected. Arthur Theate, guilty of an action which allowed Kazakhstan to open the score against the Red Devils on December 15, knows that he was at fault: “I’m a pretty raw person. I’m always going to say what I think. That evening, obviously I missed my pass. I’m not going to hide, everyone saw it.”
“But during these qualifications, we only conceded one goal together with Zeno Debast as a central pair, it was in Wales. In Kazakhstan, it was me who missed the pass. You can criticize me, but why criticize the whole defense?” he continues.
The Belgian defender underlines that the defense “was stable” and that it “went well throughout the rest of the campaign”. “We’ll always be told: ‘the opponents weren’t good’. But maybe they weren’t good because we forced them to not be good. I accept criticism because that’s part of football.”
His duet with Zeno Debast
He spoke about his duo with Zeno Debast: “He and I complement each other. I’m more aggressive and ‘mean’, and he has an incredible recovery coupled with extraordinary speed. We have things to improve, but I hope that we will be able to continue to grow together to achieve great things, as others have done in the past.”
It is not new that the defense of the Red Devils receives strong criticism, a point that Arthur Theate underlines: “The defense has been criticized for at least since 2020. I arrived in the selection at the time of the Final Four in Italy and, at the time, we were already criticizing the defense. Before the World Cup in Qatar, we were criticized. Before Euro 2024, we were criticized again. However, in my eyes, at the Euro, we had a very solid tournament behind, we were not often put in difficulty. It’s a collective job If we can’t score goals, it can also come from the defense. Conversely, if we concede goals, it can come from the attack. In my opinion, it’s better to make an overall observation than to point out specific problems.
