Belgium: Roberto Martinez Names Provisional World Cup Squad, Radja Nainggolan Omitted As Nacer Chadli Squeaks In

Chris Wright

21st, May 2018

3 Comments

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Belgium manager Roberto Martinez has named the provisional 28-man squad he will have at his disposal at the 2018 World Cup.

Several of Martinez’s selections haven’t gone down particularly well, particularly the decision to leave out Radja Nainggolan in favour of the likes of Nacer Chadli and Christian Benteke.

Photo: @BelRedDevils/Twitter

Apparently, Martinez flew to Rome on Sunday to personally inform Nainggolan that he wouldn’t be making the cut…

According to those in the know, Martinez considers Nainggolan to be a classic No.10 (he isn’t) and therefore doesn’t have room to accommodate the Roma skirmisher in his preferred 3-4-3 system.

Indeed, the 30-year-old only played 6 (six) minutes of Belgium’s World Cup qualifying campaign and also missed the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, so perhaps his omission isn’t quite the grand shock that many people are deeming it to be.

Seems like a waste of a perfectly good midfielder to us, but then we’ve got Gareth Southgate building a team around Jordan Henderson to contend with.

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3 Comments

  1. Beano says:

    Pathetic. So much for Belgium making it to the Quarter Finals again

  2. milt_palacio says:

    Good-to-great team on paper, let’s see if Martinez can make them play as a unit and get the selections right. Not sure De Bruyne, Hazard and Lukaku complement each others playing-style that well.

  3. Archer says:

    Martinez confirming what a shyte manager he is. Nainggolan should be a starter and has been robbed of what would probably have been his last tournament.

    Martinez deserves the flak (and sack) he’s gonna get when Belgium flop.

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