Belgium has made a strategic decision by including striker Romelu Lukaku in their squad for the upcoming World Cup, undeterred by his limited playtime this season. Lukaku, celebrating his 33rd birthday, has been nursing a hamstring injury while in Belgium and has not started for Napoli, only managing a goal at Verona in February.<\/p>\n
Despite his sporadic appearances, Lukaku remains Belgium’s leading scorer, prompting coach Rudi Garcia to take a calculated risk on his fitness. Belgium, positioned in Group G, will face Egypt, Iran, and New Zealand. As a safety net, the squad features promising attacker Matias Fernandez-Pardo, who recently pledged his international future to Belgium.<\/p>\n
Sporting defender Zeno Debast has also been called up despite injury concerns, while the squad benefits from the recovery of Thibaut Courtois. The team, announced during a Belgian TV news bulletin, sees Courtois, Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne, and Axel Witsel making their fourth World Cup appearance, boosting hopes for a successful tournament.<\/p>\n
(With inputs from agencies.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium has made a strategic decision by including striker Romelu Lukaku in their squad for the upcoming World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,10435,10434,10254,2195,5400,5407,3721,1849,5414],"class_list":{"0":"post-15755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-belgium-national-team","10":"tag-football-squad","11":"tag-matias-fernandez-pardo","12":"tag-napoli","13":"tag-romelu-lukaku","14":"tag-rudi-garcia","15":"tag-thibaut-courtois","16":"tag-world-cup","17":"tag-zeno-debast"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116578572464029957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}