Belgium is a European country that s composed of various people and has a diverse range of cultural aspects as a result. It is one of the most neglected areas in mainland Europe in terms of tourism, or at least it was until Brussels, its capital, because home to the European Union and European Parliament in the 1990s. As a result, of that Belgium was one of the founder members of the EU and amongst the first to adopt to Euro as the official currency. There is no official language as such because high percentages of the almost 11 million population speak Dutch, German or French, depending on where they happen to live!

In terms of sport, football is the national sport. Many people play it and follow their local teams every week. The national side has not been fantastically successful on the world stage though. At the moment, they sit in 54th place in the world FIFA rankings, which is a far cry from their best position of 16th, which they attained in January 2003. However, it is nowhere near as bad as their lowest position of 71st, which came only months ago in June 2007.

The Belgium team has made several appearances in the large competitions, including 11 World Cups over the years. They first attended in the inaugural 1930 competition and performed best in 1986. That was the year in which they came in fourth spot. However, they have never won it. Nor have they won a European Championship. Belgium has appeared in four European Championships from 1972 and came second in 1980. The national side has also appeared in the Olympics, gaining a bronze in Paris in 1900 before taking the gold in Antwerp in 1920.

The domestic football league is one of the oldest in the league. It has existed in its current form since 1895 and is known as the Jupiler League at the moment owing to sponsorship agreements. The Belgian First Division (as it is always known) has 18 teams and is played between August and May every year. The clubs all play each other twice during that time. The Belgium Cup runs alongside the league and is in the form of a knockout tournament. The clubs from all three divisions participate, entering in various stages depending on the division that they are in at the time.

The biggest clubs in Belgium are RSC Anderlecht, Club Brugge, KRC Genk and Standard Liege. All of the above have illustrious histories and have enjoyed unrivalled success in both the league and the cup. Their domination usually results in European places for them, thus bringing the spotlight onto Belgian football every now and again.