James Montague for The New York Times
Members of Scotland's traveling Tartan Army, left, jeered at a Belgian fan in Brussels in October before a World Cup qualifier.
BRUSSELS — In opposite corners of the press room, deep inside King Baudouin Stadium, two packs of journalists crowded around their subjects.
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James Montague for The New York Times
A Belgian fan displaying his national team season ticket.
It was Oct. 15, the day before Belgium played Scotland in a 2014 World Cup qualifier, and two of the national soccer team's brightest stars were being mobbed.
Behind the first huddle, Thomas Vermaelen, who plays for Arsenal in England's Premier League, answered questions in his native language. In the other corner was Axel Witsel, one of the most expensive soccer players after signing with the Russian team Zenit St. Petersburg for 40 million euros (about $51 million). He, too, was speaking to a fevered crowd of cameras and microphones in his native language.
Yet the two languages are not the same.
While Vermaelen was sharing his thoughts on the Scotland game in Flemish, a derivative of Dutch spoken by half the country, Witsel was speaking in French, the language spoken by the other half.
"We organize our interviews separately for the French and Flemish speakers," Stefan Van Loock, a spokesman for the Royal Belgian Football Association, said.
"But not all players speak both languages." As is the case with Witsel, who speaks only French, and Vermaelen, who speaks only Flemish.
For most national teams, the idea that its players might not speak the same language is unthinkable. But in Belgium it has long been a fact of life.
The Red Devils defeated Scotland, 2-0, and are tied for the lead on points with Croatia in Group A after four games on the road to Brazil 2014. A generation of talented players has emerged that is the envy of Europe: the likes of Eden Hazard, Moussa Dembélé and Vincent Kompany, Manchester City's captain who last May lifted the Premier League trophy in England.
But the team has had to put to one side the political and linguistic differences that have crippled society in Belgium in recent years. The team's potential, not to mention its recent success, is providing a rare example of national unity. The country is fractured between two communities — the 6.5 million Flemish speakers of Flanders in the north and the 4.5 million French-speaking Walloons in the south.
"The differences between the two is now a matter of money," said Lieven De Winter, a professor of contemporary politics at the Université catholique de Louvain. "Flanders is one of the most prosperous regions in Europe. Wallonia was, but it is now much weaker. It's the classic discourse from Catalonia or northern Italy. Which region pays for social security?"
The situation has worsened in recent years, with the possibility that Belgium could split in two. When Flemish separatists won a significant share of the vote in the 2007 federal election, it sparked a political crisis that prevented a government being formed until 2011. The deadlock lasted for 541 days, breaking the world record for the longest period of time a country has operated without a government. The previous record was held by Iraq.
Until recently, Belgium's soccer team had risen above the infighting. Despite being a tiny nation of 11 million (about the same as Ohio) it has a rich history in the game. It qualified for six consecutive World Cup finals and made a semifinal appearance at the 1986 tournament in Mexico, a moment heralded as a transformative for many Belgians.
"Since 1979 we've had a survey of how Belgian people feel," De Winter said. "The Walloons have always felt Belgian, the Flemish hadn't. That shifted in 1986 in the Flemish community: a jump in 15 percent from feeling Flemish to feeling Belgian. There was no other event in that period that might have triggered it."
But Belgium has not qualified for a major tournament in a decade.
"When I was working in tennis, I never felt there was a problem at the player level because you speak the universal language of sport," said Steven Martens, a former Davis Cup captain and the current general secretary of the Belgian soccer association. "But the language divide has been used on the national team level. When you have a Flemish coach, the French-speaking press is less indulgent with them and vice versa."
Now that attitude has changed.
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