Lukaku will prove to be striker of Euro 2020 tournament: Michel Sablon

With Kevin de Bruyne and Eden Hazard not fit to start Belgium's Euro 2020 opener against Russia last week, Romelu Lukaku stepped up and starred with two goals in the 3-0 win.

At 28, he is no longer that young striker in the team, he is a key figure, one with a strong personality who is valuable to the side even when he is not scoring.

GROUP B

DENMARK

BELGIUM

It is not often Lukaku doesn't find the net, though.

He is the Red Devils' all-time top scorer with 62 goals in 94 games. That's a better goal-per-game ratio than Robert Lewandowski, Cristiano Ronaldo, Harry Kane, Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappe.

For me, Lukaku is the most efficient striker at Euro 2020 in terms of the number of chances, or indeed, half-chances, he needs to find the net.

 

 

Sure, some might score more than him at club level, but they don't translate that efficiency to the international stage as well as he does.

Yet, people tend to focus on the Inter Milan striker's weaknesses rather than his strengths.

Sure, his first touch is not like Lionel Messi or Ronaldo, but it is clear that year on year he has improved his game.

While others may have better control than him or be more adept in tight spaces, how many forwards can match his power, speed, movement, awareness, positioning, reading of the game and ability to finish with either foot or his head?

The Belgium team know how to play to his many strengths and his goal tally shows that.

When you have players like de Bruyne and Hazard, who can give him excellent service, his technique becomes less important than the other sides of his game.

If Lukaku manages to stay fit, at the end of the Euros, the consensus will be that he is the best striker in the tournament.

But, for Belgium to go far, they also need their key midfielders de Bruyne, Hazard and Axel Witsel to be fit and firing.

Of the three, only Hazard featured against Russia, coming on in the 72nd minute for Dries Mertens.

De Bruyne has returned to training after suffering facial fractures in the Champions League final last month and I expect him to start against Denmark tonight.

Witsel and Hazard should play some part against the Danes and I expect all three to start their final Group B game against Finland, so that Belgium have all their key players ready for the knockout stage.

Hazard, especially, needs game time. He looked sharper in his 18 minutes against Russia than his eight minutes in Belgium's final warm-up game against Croatia.

The only way to get him up to speed is to play him more, starting with at least a half against Denmark.

The game at Parken Stadium will be a complicated one.

The Danes won't have fully recovered from watching their teammate and friend Christian Eriksen suffer cardiac arrest on the pitch against Finland.

That is not something you get over in days, it will stay with you for weeks and months, at least.

But the Danes will also be motivated by what happened, they will want to get a result for Eriksen as he watches from his hospital bed.

 

 

Belgium, too, will be affected, particularly Eriksen's Inter teammate Lukaku, as well as Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen, who played with him at Ajax Amsterdam and Tottenham Hotspur.

Collectively, when you play against a team that have had something as terrible happening to them as Denmark, there will inevitably be a sense of sympathy for them.

While it won't be as straightforward as the win over Russia, Belgium should have too much for the Danes and should seal their place in the last 16 with a win in Copenhagen.

• United Arab Emirates technical director Michel Sablon formerly occupied the same role in Singapore from 2015-2018. He was part of Belgium's coaching staff at three World Cups, including 1986, when they finished fourth. The former Belgian FA technical director is credited with developing the blueprint that produced their current golden generation of footballers.