Briels plays for the
national team, for whom he had gathered 84 caps by 2009. In 2007 he qualified with Belgium for the
2008 Olympic tournament in Beijing where they would end up ninth. At the
2012 Summer Olympics, he competed for the
national team in the
men's tournament where they eventually finished fifth. With Belgium he became European vice-champion at the
2013 European Championship on home ground in
Boom. At the
2016 Olympics, he was part of the Belgian team which won the silver medal. He was the captain of the Belgian team that won the
2018 World Cup and the
2019 EuroHockey Championship. On 25 May 2021, he was selected as the captain for the squad for the
2021 EuroHockey Championship. After the European Championship he was named as a reserve for the
2020 Summer Olympics. Despite being named as a reserve he still played in seven of the eight games in the tournament where they won Belgium its first Olympic hockey gold. After the Olympics he announced his retirement from international hockey. ==Honours==