Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois said after his nation\u2019s World Cup exit that he wants to take a \u201cbreak\u201d from international football, but said that the decision ultimately lies with the Belgian FA.<\/p>\n
Spain defeated Belgium 2-1 on Friday after an 88th-minute winner from Mikel Merino. Courtois was substituted in the 71st minute after appearing to sustain a leg muscle injury and was replaced by Senne Lammens, who was at fault for Spain\u2019s winner.<\/p>\n
The Manchester United goalkeeper spilled Pau Cubarsi\u2019s shot from outside the box, with the ball dropping to Merino to score.<\/p>\n
Courtois watched from the bench, having broken down in tears as he was substituted. The 34-year-old, who has been capped 115 times by Belgium, addressed his international future after the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs for my future with the national team, we\u2019ll see,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cI\u2019d perhaps like to take a break from the Nations League, as it\u2019s not the most important thing. And maybe come back for the Euro qualifiers. But ultimately, it\u2019s a decision the football association has to make. If not, perhaps today was my last match.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s September and October international breaks have been combined into one window, with teams playing four games over three weeks rather than two matches over one week. Belgium begin their Nations League on September 25 against Italy and will then play France twice as well as Turkey before club football returns.<\/p>\n
Courtois also said that he believed he could have played on against Spain, provided he did not have to go long.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, the team comes first,\u201d Courtois said. \u201cI can understand it, because Senne is a good goalkeeper. I was willing to stay on for another five or 10 minutes, as long as I didn\u2019t have to kick the ball very far. I\u2019ve had to do that a lot in recent weeks. At a certain point, your body has had enough of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the Belgium game, Courtois tied Germany legend Manuel Neuer for the most appearances at a World Cup by a goalkeeper with 21. His eight total clean sheets at the tournament are behind only Peter Shilton and Fabien Barthez, who hold the record with 10.<\/p>\n
Courtois made his international debut as a 19-year-old in 2011 and has represented Belgium at the last four World Cups, starting every game at each of them. The team\u2019s best showing at the competition was in 2018, where they were defeated in the semi-finals by France but beat England in the third place play-off.<\/p>\n
Courtois\u2019 focus can now shift to club football with Real Madrid, where he signed a new contract until 2027 last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois said after his nation\u2019s World Cup exit that he wants to take a \u201cbreak\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,3937,506,2323],"class_list":["post-28328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-international-football","tag-real-madrid"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116900978027977608","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28328","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=28328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}