Belgium national football team results (unofficial matches)

This is a list of the Belgium national football team's results from 1890 to the present day that, for various reasons, are not accorded the status of official internationals.^[1][2]

The nine games played between Belgium and England's amateur team are not considered official by the opponents; this also applies to a game played between Belgium and England in 1946, which is classified by the English FA as an unofficial 'Victory International'.^[2][3] While the Belgian Football Association does not take several Olympic Games matches of Belgium into account, according to the RSSSF there is no reason to doubt about the official character.^[2]

The first appearance of a Belgium national team came at the 1900 Summer Olympics, where a mixed team representing Belgium mostly made up of students from the Université de Bruxelles, played one match against France represented by Club Français, which ended in a 2–6 loss.^[4]

The first four games played by a national selection of players active in Belgium and the Netherlands between 1901 and 1904, were not yet considered official because of the presence of English players in the "Belgian" squad.^[1][5] These four games were all contested in Antwerp, and the prize was a cup offered by Frédéric Vanden Abeele, the Coupe Vanden Abeele.^[6] A few weeks earlier, the "Vanden Abeele squad" played a preparatory match against a team made up of officers of Hounslow's Royal Fusiliers.^[7]

Between 1910 and 1913, "Select Belgium" played an annual match against a London League XI on All Saints' Day (1 November) in Brussels, losing two and winning two, the latter with an epic 5–4 win.^[10]

Football stayed popular during the war, and some popular clubs, such as Royal Antwerp and Beerschot, regrouped in the unoccupied parts of Belgium, and teams from different regiments competed against each other.^[12] In early 1915, a small group of Belgian players who had retreated to France formed a committee of the Belgian FA in Paris, which was able to organize matches between Belgium and French teams thanks to the generous intervention of the patron Eric Thornton, who rented the grounds, paid for travel, equipment, and Etcetera.^[13] When Albert I, King of the Belgians attended such a match, he noticed that the mandatory heavy army boots the soldiers had to relentlessly wear seriously hindered the game, so he supplied the Belgian army with 500 pairs of football boots, which allowed them to play with professional equipment.^[12] Shortly after, Armand Swartenbroeks founded the Belgian army's football team, containing former international players, such as Félix Balyu, Emile Hanse, Jan Van Cant, and Maurice Vandendriessche.^[13] In March 1915, they played their first match against an equivalent French team, winning 3–0,^[12] and on 6 February 1916, the Front Wanderers took the train from Ypres to Paris where they beat 'Les Bleus' (4–1) on 12 March.^[14]

These games and results are recognized as official only by the CFI, but not by FIFA, who categorized them as "War-time Internationals".^[13] The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, however, listed three France–Belgium matches in this period together with the matches between 1905 and 1914, without noting a difference in status.^[15] In the 1918 match, Albert I handed out a cup trophy for the winners.^[12][16] Also in this period, they faced Italy three times, two of which as a France-Belgium representative team.^[17]

On 26 January 1916, Sporting, a French sports weekly magazine, decided to set up sports events across France at the end of April 1916.^[18] This initiative aimed to collect money and send balls and boxing gloves to French soldiers. The biggest sports event was a football tournament in the Paris area with seven different teams representing four countries, and Belgium won the tournament.^[18]

This football team, consisting of footballers from the Belgian military, became known as the Belgian Front Wanderers.^[12][14][19] On 16 December 1916, Louis van Hege, the Belgian star player of AC Milan also joined the team, and this gives the Front Wanders a new dimension, making the charity matches reaching an international level.^[14] Therefore, in June 1917, they faced Italy, and after an adventurous 48-hour train ride to Milan, the Belgian team beat the Italians on their home turf by a score of 4–3.^[12] They also faced two Italian clubs, Modena (5–0) and AC Milan (4–6).^[14] The Belgian Front Wanderers then toured Great Britain on 15-29 November 1917 to play charity matches for the benefit of Belgian war refugees and front-line soldiers in the trenches, playing six matches against British and Canadian army teams in the large stadiums of all the major English cities.^[12][14][19] The tour was a great success, and as a result, the Front Wanderers were again invited by the British in 1918, playing three matches there, but they also played at home; for instance, on 6 June, in the unoccupied Belgian town of Roesbrugge, they "obliterated the English 13–2".^[12]

In the summer of 1919, Belgium participated in the Inter-Allied Games in Paris, on the occasion of the celebration of the Allied victory in World War I. This Belgian team featured five players who would go on to win the gold medal in the 1920 Summer Games in the following year. They comfortably beat Canada and the United States, which was the first time, official or otherwise, that Belgium faced a non-European team. However, a 1–4 loss to eventual champions Czechoslovakia on the opening day cost them a place in the final, although Belgium got their revenge by beating them in the final of the 1920 Olympics.^[20]

Apart from the official biannual Low Countries derbies, Belgium played against the Netherlands for diverse purposes in the 1920s; the 1925 and 1926 matches served as fundraiser for FIFA and charity, respectively, and in the 1929 match the Royal Dutch Football Association's 40th anniversary was celebrated.^[21]

Outside the official biannual Low Countries derbies, Belgium faced the Netherlands for diverse reasons in the 1930s; the 1930 match served to inaugurate the new national stadium, the two matches in 1932 served as a fundraiser for FIFA and charity, and the 1939 match was at the occasion of the Royal Dutch Football Association's 50th anniversary.^[21]

During the occupation of Belgium in World War II, Belgium played multiple unofficial friendlies abroad against teams of allied nations. These included two selections of the English FA that contained some Scottish and Welsh players at both occasions.^[47]

The matches against Romania on 14 November 2012 and against Luxembourg on 26 May 2014 were scheduled as official friendlies but afterwards not recognized by FIFA because of Romania's 8 substitutions^[55] and Belgium's 7 substitutions^[56] respectively, while only 6 were allowed.^[57] The Belgian and Czech football federations were too late in asking that the match against Czech Republic on 5 June 2017 would be official.^[58]