Italy squad for World Cup playoffs: Liverpool\u2019s Chiesa called up for the first time in two years<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cEden Hazard started very, very early at Lille with me, Rayan Cherki started at 16 at Lyon with me,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I also think he\u2019s an athletic profile we don\u2019t have much of in Belgium.\u201d<\/p>\n
Belgium stalwarts Kevin de Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku are back after injury, but Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois is missing after tearing a muscle in his upper right leg during a Champions League match.<\/p>\n
Garcia said Courtois will likely be ruled out for up to six weeks.<\/p>\n
Belgium takes on the United States on March 28 in Atlanta and faces Mexico three days later in Chicago.<\/p>\n
The World Cup starts in June.<\/p>\n
Belgium squad for pre-World Cup friendlies<\/p>\n
\nGoalkeepers: Senne Lammens (Manchester United), Matz Sels (Nottingham Forest), Maarten Vandevoordt (RB Leizpig).\n<\/p>\n
\nDefenders: Timothy Castagne (Fulham), Zeno Debast (Sporting Lisbon), Maxim De Cuyper (Brighton), Koni De Winter (AC Milan), Brandon Mechele (Club Brugge), Thomas Meunier (Lille), Nathan Ngoy (Lille), Joaquin Seys (Club Brugge), Arthur Theate (Eintracht Frankfurt).\n<\/p>\n
\nMidfielders : Kevin De Bruyne (Napoli), Nathan De Cat (Anderlecht), Amadou Onana (Aston Villa), Nicolas Raskin (Rangers), Youri Tielemans (Aston Villa), Hans Vanaken (Club Brugge), Axel Witsel (Girona).\n<\/p>\n
\nForwards: Charles De Ketelaere (Atalanta), J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku (Manchester City), Mika Godts (Ajax), Romelu Lukaku (Napoli), Dodi Lukebakio (Benfica), Lois Openda (Juventus), Alexis Saelemaekers (AC Milan), Lucas Stassin (Saint-Etienne), Leandro Trossard (Arsenal).\n<\/p>\n
Published on Mar 20, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium coach Rudi Garcia has included three uncapped players in his squad for a training camp and friendlies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,5512,5506,5510,5507,5429,5509,5508,5511],"class_list":{"0":"post-7533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-belgium-fifa-world-cup-2026","10":"tag-belgium-football-team","11":"tag-belgium-full-list-of-players-friendlies","12":"tag-belgium-national-football-team","13":"tag-belgium-squad","14":"tag-belgium-squad-for-friendlies","15":"tag-belgium-squad-friendlies","16":"tag-belgium-world-cup-2026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116267180707697115","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7533","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=7533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}