The pressure is off Belgium at the 2026 World Cup — and Maxim De Cuyper believes that could work in their favour.
The Brighton & Hove Albion defender is part of a new wave of talent as his national team transitions under Rudi Garcia from their golden generation, a group who had been weighed down by the burden of big expectations in recent tournaments.
Garcia still has an old-guard core of Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Thibaut Courtois upon whom to call, a throwback to an era when Belgium were regarded as genuine contenders to be crowned world champions.
They beat Brazil in the quarter-finals in Russia in 2018 — described by De Cuyper as “one of the most historic games in Belgium football history” — before losing to eventual winners France in the semi-finals. Roberto Martinez’s side ended up finishing third.
They were strongly fancied to build on that in Qatar in 2022, only to crash out in the group stages, scoring one goal en route and finishing third in their group behind Morocco and Croatia.
Kevin De Bruyne shows his despair as Belgium depart Qatar prematurely (Francois Nel/Getty Images)
Garcia’s side are long-priced outsiders this time, at least according to bookmakers, with odds available as high as 50-1.
“If you didn’t qualify for a World Cup in 2010 and in 2018 you are playing in the semi-finals, it’s normal that expectations change, and they change again when there is a new generation,” says De Cuyper. “We don’t have the same pressure as the team that was playing some years before us.
“Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not. It’s good to push you even more. I can see the advantages and disadvantages of it.
“But for a lot of guys that are playing with us, maybe it’s good that we don’t have too much pressure because it’s the first tournament and, hopefully, we can just grow into the tournament and see how far we can go.”
De Cuyper finds it comforting that De Bruyne, Lukaku and Courtois are still around from the team that started against Brazil eight years ago. De Bruyne scored the winning goal that night in 2018.
“I was 17 or 18 when I saw them play against Brazil,” he says, talking to reporters at Brighton’s training headquarters before joining up with the national team. “It’s a big honour for me to play together with them at the World Cup.
“I was surprised with how easy it has been, because they are not only good players but they are such good guys that you feel so comfortable and it makes it so easy to play with them.”
Maxim De Cuyper playing for Belgium against Mexico in Chicago in March (Daniel Bartel/Getty Images)
De Cuyper is a more regular starter for Belgium than for Brighton, with Turkish World Cup defender Ferdi Kadioglu blocking his path at left-back since a £17.3million ($23.2m) move from Brugge last summer. De Cuyper started 17 of 38 Premier League games in the 2025-26 campaign, while he has featured in 11 of 13 matches under Garcia.
“From the first day I had a really good relationship with him (Garcia),” De Cuyper says. “We are just really honest with each other and he really tries to bring the group together. That is not easy, because we only (usually) have one week every time we see each other.
“He is doing a great job in that respect.”
De Cuyper had a reputation when he joined Brighton of being more effective in attack than defence. “I have been busy with the technical staff about what I can do better and what I am doing well but can improve,” says the 25-year-old. “They don’t have to tell me what we have to do in attack. They just have to tell me what I can do better in defence. That is what we have been doing in the last months.”
Maxim De Cuyper outpaces West Ham’s Jean-Clair Todibo and Soungoutou Magassa (Paul Harding/Getty Images)
De Cuyper knows the hazards of dealing with high-class wingers in the Premier League, so he is glad to have Jeremy Doku on his side in the national team.
The Manchester City forward is spearheading Belgium’s next generation as they attempt to make amends for their poor showing in Qatar four years ago by qualifying for the knockout stages from group G against Egypt on Monday (3pm ET; 8pm BST), Iran and New Zealand.
“It makes my life very easy,” De Cuyper says of having Doku as a team-mate. “Everybody knows his quality. And if I understand him, what he wants to do, or where he’s going, it makes it even easier for me to run into free spaces or be free on the ball, because he always pulls two or three players to himself.
“I know him now (for) a bit more than two years. At the beginning, you have to get to know each other, building a relationship. We are on the level now that I almost always understand what he is going to do.
“I don’t know if we are going to win the World Cup but we have a big chance to play a really good World Cup. We have some very good players. The most important thing is sticking together; that’s what we did in the last months every camp, every game.
“If we do that, we can have a great tournament.”