It came in the words of Neil Black, the Performance Director of British Athletics whose team had once more finished top of the medal table with nine from France's four and the three from Belgium and Spain.
“Cross country is re-establishing itself as the background to endurance running,' said Black. 'We are looking forward now to converting cross country to the track. We are really putting a huge effort into that conversion.'
The 'we' was directed towards his team but it could have been a general statement about European athletics because from the six individual winners in Serbia, three had triumphed on the track in July at both the European Athletics U23 Championships in Tampere and the European Athletics Junior Championships in Rieti.
It seems the combination of being a cross country runner and a track athlete is one of the same among some of Europe's top stars, arguably with each dovetailing the other.
Emelia Gorecka, 19, the Briton who regained the junior title in Belgrade, had won the 3000m gold in Rieti.
How much of the endurance she needed to strike gold five months ago came from her brilliant success at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships where she had six medals even before arriving in Serbia?
European Athletics Director General Christian Milz talked about the importance of cross country on Saturday, referring to the progress of Mo Farah, now the Olympic and world 5000m and 10,000m champion in a career, whose first major gold was at the 2006 SPAR European Cross Country Championships.
Gorecka will now move into the under-23 ranks and her bid for glory in that event will become one of the fascinating aspects of next year's SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Samokov.
First, of course, will be the European Athletics Championships in Zurich in August when Black's theory is generally likely to produce more track medallists who can run cross country.
Belgium's Pieter-Jan Hannes is the perfect example.
He produced a fabulous run to win the under-23 race in Belgrade, beating a field with men more experienced than him on this surface, and now Zurich will surely be on his radar.
In the summer, he won the 1500m gold in Tampere and his progress was rubber-stamped by the way he stormed to victory in Belgrade.
Türkiye's Ali Kaya, 19, is in a similar position.
He won the junior men's race on the back of 5000m and 10,000m gold in Rieti and ran with maturity in the way he responded in Belgrade as his bid for glory was challenged by the presence of eventual silver-medallist, Belgium’s Isaac Kimeli.
Athletics is all about learning curves, but it is not always easy to combine the bounce of the track with softness of the mud. It seems, though, that Europe's young athletes are becoming pretty good at mastering both.