Learn why Belgium have some of the best players at Euro 2016

A few weeks ago, Jan Vertonghen was in one of Tottenham Hotspur’s training-ground meeting rooms and enthusing about his supreme centre-half partnership with compatriot Toby Alderweireld - but also explaining how it’s unlikely to make any difference to Belgian manager Marc Wilmots at Euro 2016.

[EURO 2016 TEAM PROFILES: BELGIUM]

“I don’t expect him to try us together, no,” Vertonghen said with stark matter-of-factness. “I think we’ll start the campaign as full-backs and you never know where you’re going to end up but hopefully we stay full-backs, because otherwise that will mean more injuries.”

In other words, it’s going to take a crisis for Wilmots to try two of the Premier League and Belgium’s better players in their best positions. It is actually remarkable. Wilmots has ready-prepared understanding in a key area, of the sort that would greatly improve any team and so many managers would crave, but refuses to use it.

Tottenham's Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen look dejected after West Brom's first goal - Reuters

It sums up the big issue with this Belgian team, before even getting as far as their real stars. As you look down that eye-opening squad list, after all, it’s very difficult not to be impressed at the sheer variety of brilliance; it’s almost impossible not to think they could win it.

The problem, though, is that Wilmots evidently doesn’t look at it in the same way. In his time as manager, Belgium have been a team who are less than the sum of their sensational individual parts. It is a greater obstacle to their chance at glory than any opposition side - unless Wilmots is building to something no-one else sees, or is willing to change.

The only thing building right now is the fear that the wrong manager could waste a golden generation. Belgium are just so frustratingly flat in a way they shouldn't be. They just don’t spark or flow in the way a team of such fine ability should, and there are head-scratching decisions right through the team. Nothing emphasises any of this more than the fact that the player with the most international goals in this squad is not Eden Hazard or Kevin De Bruyne or any of the other brilliant attackers, but Marouane Fellaini, with 15.