Frenchman Rudi Garcia is leaving his post as head coach of the Belgian national football team, a position he took up in February 2025 and led the team to the quarter-finals of the 2026 World Cup, the Royal Belgian Football Association announced on Monday. Garcia said, according to a statement from the federation: 'After consultations with the Belgian federation, we have decided not to continue this excellent journey that spanned the last 18 months.' Under the leadership of the 62-year-old, who succeeded German-Italian Domenico Tedesco in this role, the Belgian national team reached the World Cup quarter-finals, where they lost to Spain, who won the title on Sunday at the expense of Argentina, the 2022 champions. Since taking charge in February 2025 of a team still reeling from two failures — elimination in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup and in the round of 16 of Euro 2024 — the French coach revitalized the 'Red Devils' squad, who entered the 2026 World Cup on the back of 13 matches without defeat, extending that run to 18 in the finals before falling 2-1 to Spain in the quarter-finals. The former coach of Lille, Roma, Marseille, Lyon, Napoli, and Al-Nassr first cemented his legitimacy by achieving two key objectives: keeping Belgium in the top tier of the UEFA Nations League and qualifying for the World Cup in the United States. Beyond the statistics, Garcia succeeded in managing the transition between the golden generation led by Eden Hazard and the new wave of talented players led by Jérémy Doku.