It was soon obvious that Thibaut Courtois, speaking before Belgium’s Euro 2016 qualifying tie against Wales, would not be serving up any juice relating to Petr Cech, his Chelsea team-mate, or the expected merry-go-round of elite goalkeepers in the summer.
There was, of course, respect from Courtois towards the colleague he has displaced at Stamford Bridge and effectively pressed towards the exit door. “There is no doubt that Petr is the best in the world, I think we pushed each other to a higher level,” Courtois said. “He is a fantastic guy. If he stays at Chelsea, I am happy and if he leaves, I understand, as well.”
Yet the irritation rose quickly inside Courtois. “Look,” he said, in what amounted to a snap. “I don’t want to speak about this now. The game against Wales is the most important thing. It is more important than speaking about things at Chelsea.”
Belgium, who are luxuriating in second place on the Fifa world rankings – an all-time high – mean business here in Cardiff. Victory over the team with which they share the lead in Group B would propel them towards the finals in France next summer. This is a golden period for them. Marc Wilmots, the manager, can boast a squad that is studded with massive reputations and reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup last summer. They intend to go further at the Euros.
But the build-up to this eagerly-awaited collision has been coloured – arguably overshadowed – by the swirl of speculation that has tracked Wilmots and many of his starting XI. Some of those involved have done nothing to dampen it, with Toby Alderweireld, Kevin De Bruyne and Christian Benteke, for example, talking openly about their situations.
Alderweireld, who spent last season on loan at Southampton from Atlético Madrid, has said that the Spanish club want him back but he would prefer to continue somewhere in England. De Bruyne, the one-time Chelsea misfit, who lit up the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg, is hot property and a target for Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Paris St-Germain, while Benteke, the Aston Villa striker, is of interest to Liverpool and has also been followed in recent years by Tottenham Hotspur.
Benteke will be offered a new contract by Villa, to override the one that expires in 2017, but he is unlikely to sign it. Instead, he will wait to see whether Liverpool meet his £32.5m release clause, and that is not likely to happen in a hurry. Villa are determined to hold onto him. This one has the makings of a saga.
Then there are the Zenit St Petersburg players, Nicolas Lombaerts and Axel Witsel. Lombaerts, a centre-half who has been with Zenit for eight years, is ready for a new challenge, possibly in the Premier League. Witsel, a highly-rated midfielder who cost €40m (£29m) when he moved in 2012, has been linked with Juventus as a potential Paul Pogba replacement. And, finally, there is Wilmots, who is expected to join Schalke in the summer. The Wales tie could be his last in charge of his country.
The tension crackled at the Cardiff City Stadium, where Wilmots followed Courtois into the cross-hairs of the media. There were times, as the transfer-based questions came, when it felt as though the manager was ready to walk out. Wilmots attempted several methods of diffusion, from the claim that he and the squad simply laughed at all of the talk to the one about how he metaphorically rolled it up into a nice ball and threw it into the bin.
He eventually alighted upon a nice line. “I will simply say that the best way to sell yourself as a player is to have a good game here and win,” Wilmots said. “We are quite used to the speculation. We will see.”
Wilmots and his players are not the types to be distracted, and Belgium’s greater concerns, ahead of a fixture that has captured the imagination and is comfortably Wales’s biggest since 2003, when they lost the Euro 2004 play-off to Russia, relate to the suspension of the captain, Vincent Kompany, and the injury-induced absence of Marouane Fellaini.
Kompany’s loss has been offset by the emergence of the 19-year-old Jason Denayer but Fellaini’s non-availability deprives the team of physicality, balance and goal threat. Wilmots must decide whether to play Nacer Chadli or De Bruyne as the No10, with the likelihood being that it will be the former, leaving De Bruyne to work off the flank.
It is clear that Belgium expect Wales to remain compact and look to punch on the counter, most dangerously through Gareth Bale, but they arrive on the back of Sunday’s 4-3 win over France in Paris, in which Fellaini scored twice. The scalp of a true contender has fortified them.
“I needed this kind of game to prepare for Wales, that’s why I chose it,” Wilmots said. “I knew we would play in front of 70,000, and there would be a lot of intensity, a lot of duels. We were able to beat a big nation and we need to keep the same mentality.”
