LONDON
\nRudi Garcia has left his role as Belgium coach after his side were knocked out of the World Cup quarter-finals, the Belgian football federation (RBFA) said on Monday.
\nGarcia, 62, took over the Red Devils in January 2025 before guiding them to a last-eight loss to eventual tournament winners Spain.
\nThe Frenchman replaced Domenico Tedesco and also helped Belgium secure their place in Nations League A with an ageing generation of big names players such as midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, forward Romelu Lukaku and goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.
\n\u201cWe sincerely thank Rudi Garcia and his staff for their dedication, professionalism and commitment over the past 18 months,\u201d the RBFA said.
\n\u201cAnd wish them every success in the future,\u201d it added.
\nGarcia\u2019s spell in charge was his first job in international football having had notable stints with Lille, Roma and Marseille.
\nIn 2023, he lasted just five months at Napoli before being sacked after only 16 games.
\nAt the World Cup, he was unable to take Belgium further than the last eight. Their third-place finish in 2018 remains their best performance at the competition.<\/p>\n
\u2018Revival\u2019
\nTedesco had only managed to take the squad to the last 16 of Euro 2024. His predecessor Roberto Martinez lost his job after a group stage exit at the World Cup four years ago.
\n\u201cRudi Garcia has undoubtedly contributed to the revival of the Red Devils,\u201d RBFA sporting director Vincent Mannaert said,
\n\u201cHe was appointed national coach in a difficult sporting and financial context.
\n\u201cThanks in particular to his commitment and experience, team cohesion was restored and an excellent result was achieved at the last World Cup, Lannaert added.
\nBelgium finished top of their group and hammered co-hosts the US 4-1 in the last 16 in a game overshadowed by President Donald Trump asking FIFA to suspend Folarin Balogun\u2019s red card ban.
\n\u201cI leave Belgium in League A of the Nations League and among the 8 best teams in the world,\u201d Garcia said on Instagram.
\n\u201cOnly Spain, the new world champions, against whom we were the only team to score a goal in eight matches, prevented us from going even further in the most prestigious of competitions,\u201d the former Lille midfielder added.
\nGarcia kept faith with the likes of de Bruyne, Lukaku and Courtois, all 33 or older for the competition, from their fabled \u201cGolden Generation\u201d which also included Eden Hazard and Vincent Kompany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON Rudi Garcia has left his role as Belgium coach after his side were knocked out of the World Cup quarter-finals, the Belgian football federation (RBFA) said on Monday. Garcia, 62, took over the Red Devils in January 2025 before guiding them to a last-eight loss to eventual tournament winners Spain. The Frenchman replaced Domenico …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":100582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100603,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100569\/revisions\/100603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}