The Belgian national team will lose its striker, Romelu Lukaku, for at least its first two matches in the group stage of the Qatar World Cup, which starts on Sunday, according to media reports.
The Italian Inter striker was not present with the Belgium national team in the first open exercise in front of the media since his arrival in Doha on Friday night, Saturday, due to a left thigh injury.
The Spanish coach of Belgium, Roberto Martinez, decided to call Lukaku to the squad for the finals, despite the injury suffered by the best scorer in the history of the national team (68 goals in 102 matches), despite his admission that the 29-year-old was “not physically fit”.
During his announcement of the squad for the finals on the tenth of this month, Martinez, who led Belgium to third place in the last edition in Russia in 2018, said that the striker is undergoing treatment and has ten days until the eve of the first match in Group F against Canada on November 23, “Ke fully recovering.”
But he did not recover in time, which would make him out of the team for the first two matches against Canada and Morocco, at the very least, according to what was reported by “Agence France Presse”.
In the absence of Lukaku, Martinez is likely to resort to Turkish striker Fenerbahçe, Michy Batshuayi, who started in the last preparatory match, which the Belgians lost 2-1 to Egypt on Friday.
