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Belgians quick to reject notion of golden generation

Hyperbole translates awkwardly into Flemish so Belgium's manager and his players have been keen to crush talk of a new golden generation after a close season of big-money transfers and last month's impressive 4-2 friendly win against the Netherlands.

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Staff Writer

Eden Hazard and Axel Witsel each cost Chelsea and Zenit St Petersburg some £30m while Tottenham Hotspur bought Mousa Dembele for £15m and Jan Vertonghen for about £10m. Belgium also boast the captains of Manchester City and Arsenal in Vincent Kompany and Thomas Vermaelen.

However, after training before tomorrow's match in Wales, few wanted to talk of the team's potential. "A good team is based solely on results," said Marc Wilmots, the coach.

"We haven't achieved anything," said the striker Romelu Lukaku.

"We have to keep both feet on the ground. If we do better than the team of '86 [they reached the World Cup semi-finals] then you can talk of us as the golden era."

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