Are the best days now behind Belgium’s golden generation?

For 30 riotous, raucous minutes at the King Baudouin Stadium, you could convince yourself that everything was fine. Everything was coming off: Leandro Trossard found the top corner from 25 yards. Leander Dendoncker piled one in from distance. Kevin De Bruyne was having one of those games where he simply does whatever he wants. With virtually the last kick, the explosive 21-year-old Club Brugge striker Lois Openda scored a debut goal. Final score: Belgium 6-1 Poland. Normal service spectacularly resumed.

Everyone was having so much fun that it was almost possible to forget the humiliation that had taken place on the same pitch just five nights earlier. Against their neighbours the Netherlands, Belgium did not so much implode as disappear, deservedly losing 4-1. Afterwards Louis van Gaal – who you suspect has never quite forgiven Belgium for turning him down for the national team job in 2016 – crowed imperiously about how his side had “one player extra in every position on the pitch”.

It was Belgium’s heaviest home defeat in 14 years and for all the catharsis of the Poland win, as they prepare to face Wales in Cardiff on Saturday night, Roberto Martínez’s side are encountering some new and discomforting questions. Was it a blip? Was it a wake-up call, as Martínez insisted? Or for an ageing team that lost their world No 1 ranking earlier this year, was it the first sign of a slow and inexorable decline?

On the face of things, the Belgians remain an irresistible force. They have scored in an astonishing 46 consecutive games since losing the 2018 World Cup semi-final to France. Six years into the job Martínez remains a resilient and popular coach, having established a club-like mentality, kept faith in a recognised core of