Frenchman Rudy Garcia will leave his position as coach of the Belgian national team, which he took over in February 2025 and led to the quarter-finals of the 2026 World Cup, at the end of this month, according to an announcement by the Royal Belgian Football Association on Monday.

Garcia said, as quoted in the federation's statement: 'After consultations with the Belgian federation, we have decided not to continue this excellent journey that spanned the past 18 months.'

Under the leadership of the 62-year-old, who succeeded German-Italian Domenico Tedesco in the position, the Belgian team reached the World Cup quarter-finals, where they lost to Spain, who won the title on Sunday at the expense of 2022 champions Argentina.

Since taking charge in January 2025 of a team reeling from the shock of two failures (elimination in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup and the round of 16 of Euro 2024), the French coach revitalized the 'Red Devils' squad, who entered the 2026 World Cup on a run of 13 consecutive matches without defeat, extending it 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 Saudi Arabia's Al-Nassr first strengthened his legitimacy by achieving two main objectives: keeping Belgium in the top group of the UEFA Nations League and qualifying for the World Cup in the United States.

Beyond the numbers, Garcia succeeded in managing the transition between the golden generation led by Eden Hazard and the new wave of talented players led by Jeremy Doku.