RENTON, Wash. (AP) \u2014 Belgium winger J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku returned to practice Wednesday, a day after reportedly leaving a training session early, as the team prepares for its World Cup opener against Egypt on Monday.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old Doku, who plays for Premier League club Manchester City, experienced some breathing issues on Tuesday during a closed practice, according to Belgian newspaper HLN. Before practice ended, Doku went inside the indoor training facility of Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders for precautionary reasons, the report said.<\/p>\n
During the portion of Wednesday’s training session open to reporters, Doku was a full participant. Winger Alexis Saelemaekers said he believes the national team’s training staff can keep Doku in shape for the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen J\u00e9r\u00e9my steps off the field, it is logical that there are immediate question marks,\u201d Saelemaekers said in French. \u201cBut it is nothing serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doku has represented Belgium on the international level since 2020. In World Cup qualifying in 2025, Doku scored a goal in a 4-3 win over Wales. He put in two in a 7-0 victory over Liechtenstein, a result which clinched Belgium’s berth in this year’s World Cup.<\/p>\n
In 42 appearances for the Belgian national team, Doku has scored seven goals.<\/p>\n
Center back Zeno Debast was the only notable Belgium player absent from Wednesday’s training session, which was expected. The 22-year-old Debast injured his leg in May during a training session with Portuguese club Sporting Lisbon and is not expected to be available until later in the tournament.<\/p>\n
Debast has appeared in 26 matches for Belgium and was on the 2022 World Cup roster in Qatar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RENTON, Wash. (AP) \u2014 Belgium winger J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku returned to practice Wednesday, a day after reportedly leaving a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[3924,7,5942,5941,12818,12819,12817,5414],"class_list":["post-20336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-alexis-saelemaekers","tag-belgium","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40820-ap-washington-state-sports-only","tag-product-42059-world-cup-text","tag-world-cup-belgium-jeremy-doku-fitness","tag-zeno-debast"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116728002133059332","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20336","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=20336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}