Belgium – Romania preview: Standard’s Three Musketeers reunited

By | November 11, 2011

For a number of reasons, international friendly matches don’t have great appeal these days. Football fans value competition and are not keen to pay to watch a match with multiple substitutions and a lack of effort from some participants. This was thrown into sharp relief yesterday when Ajax defender Toby Alderweireld said that playing at the Stade de France (on Tuesday next) would be great but, on the whole, he’d rather be in Amsterdam.

Tonight Belgium play Romania in Liege and Georges Leekens has done his best to generate interest by suggesting that he will re-unite Standard Liege’s midfield of 2007-2008: Marouane Fellaini, Steven Defour and Axel Witsel. Going further, he seemingly intends to play four more former Standard players: Bologna’s Jean-Francois Gillet, Bayern’s Daniel Van Buyten, Twente’s Nacer Chadli and Olympiakos’ Kevin Mirallas.

It hasn’t worked though and as of yesterday, only 13,000 tickets have been sold for tonight’s friendly. The main interest will be in seeing how the Fellaini-Defour-Witsel combination works after a few years of separation (to Everton, Porto and Benfica respectively) and also how Mirallas shapes up after some time out of the international picture. He scored three goals in a practice match yesterday so he obviously feels good.

There are also suggestions that Cagliari’s Radja Naingollan could get some playing time. The Belgo-Indonesian defensive midfielder has played once before for Belgium, in 2009’s Kirin Cup. Naingollan’s been getting good reviews in Serie A for some time and has been known to complain that he’s Belgium’s forgotten man. Belgian fans know little about Naingollan, except that he loves tattoos, as he has never played in the Jupiler League – moving to Italy (to Piacenza) in 2005 at the age of 17.

Players such as Simon Mignolet, Nic Lombaerts, Timmy Simons, Vadis Odjidja and Romelu Lukaku all have sick-notes; in Mignolet’s case, a very serious one. Others, such as Thibaut Courtois, Alderweireld, Thomas Vermaelen, Eden Hazard, Moussa Dembélé and Jelle Vossen are being held back for the slightly more serious clash with France on Tuesday night. That leaves Kevin De Bruyne and Guillaume Gillet who may get a bit of time tonight and if not, certainly on Tuesday. However, Leekens’ well-laid plans took a hit yesterday when Vincent Kompany and Jan Vertonghen were injured in training and are doubtful.

As for Romania, it’s one of many teams in transition. Inter’s Christian Chivu has retired from international football while Adrian Mutu and West Bromwich Albion’s Gabriel Tamas have been banned for life for having a few drinks before they played San Marino in August. Life can be so unjust. Romania did not qualify for Euro 2012, finishing behind France and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the team tonight will be relatively inexperienced.

Likely Belgium team: Gillet; Vanden Borre, Kompany (or Vermaelen), Van Buyten, Vertonghen (or Alderweireld); Fellaini, Defour, Witsel; Chadli, Mirallas, Dries Mertens.

Likely Romania team: Tatarusanu; Papp, Golan, Radu, Rat; Cocis, Bourceanu; Lazar, Torje, Stancu, Tanase.

 

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