Belgium

The Belgium women's national football team (nicknamed Belgian Red Flames) represents Belgium in international women's football. It is controlled by the Royal Belgian Football Association, the governing body for football in Belgium. Their home stadium is Den Dreef and their current coach Ives Serneels. During most of its history the team has had poor results, but showed improvement in the Euro 2013 and 2015 World Cup Qualifiers. In 2016, they qualified for their first major tournament: Euro 2017.

History

Early days (1976–1984)

Belgium played its first match against France on May 30, 1976 at Stade Auguste Delaune in Reims, France. The game ended in a 2–1 victory. A year after this debut, the Belgian team played against Switzerland and France, tying both matches, 2–2 and 1–1 respectively. They played the same teams again the next year, this time beating both with 1–0 and 2–0. Another victory followed against Yugoslavia with 1–0. The team's first defeat however came at the hands of England: 3–0, which was followed by a 2–0 loss against France and a 2–2 tie against the Netherlands. In the following years, Belgium kept playing mostly against European teams.

First tournaments (1984–1989)

Belgium participated in qualifications for the first time for the 1984 European Competition for Women's Football. They were sorted in Group 4 with the Netherlands, Denmark and West Germany. The campaign started off well with a 3–2 victory over the Netherlands, but continued with a 1–0 loss against Denmark and a 1–1 draw against West Germany. Despite having a neutral goal difference at this point, the Belgian team ended up last in the group after a 5–0 defeat against the Netherlands and draws against their other two opponents, 2–2 against Denmark and 1–1 against West Germany.

Their second attempt at qualifying was for the 1987 European Competition, where they were joined in Group 3 by France, the Netherlands again and Sweden. Their game