When Roberto Martinez was asked about any designs that Romelu Lukaku might have on the golden boot at Russia 2018, he had made it very clear when that his priorities should lay elsewhere and while you could see what Belgium’s perennially-earnest coach was getting at, there is no question which direction his striker went in Belgium’s run to the World Cup semifinal.
Sooner or later, with all nods to form and fitness, the expectation is that Lukaku will be a record-breaking goalscorer at international level if he maintains a current strike rate that is, all told, nothing short of extraordinary.
At 25, the Belgium striker who crashed out of the World Cup 2018 after losing the semifinal 1-0 against France, has 38 international goals in 70 caps for his country.
It is a record that does not just bear comparison with the great sharpshooters of the modern age, it blows them through the saloon bar doors.
Last November, still aged 24, Lukaku passed the joint Belgium all-time goalscoring record of 30, first set by Bernard Voorhoof in 1940 and equalled by Paul van Himst in 1974.
It was a relatively modest record, held by two players from different eras, and Lukaku made his international debut aged 17, so was always likely to break it.
But in doing so he has set a formidable pace with seven since November, most recently those two against Panama in the first World Cup group game.
The Belgian footballer has a record at his age in international football superior to that of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney when they were at an equivalent age.
Lukaku was 25 years and 41 days old on 23 June 2018 – at the same age Ronaldo had 22 goals in 69 caps, and he has not done badly since. His goal against Morocco in the group stages of the world cup took him to 85 and ahead of Ferenc Puskas as the all-time leading European international goalscorer.
“Romelu is not here to be the top goalscorer in the World Cup,” Martinez had said before the match. “What pleases me is that he is here to do his role for the team. He will score goals. I know him well from my time at Everton where we spent more on him than any player in the club’s history. We did that because we saw outstanding quality, not because he was the finished article.”
If indeed he still remains the unfinished article, then Lukaku has built a remarkable basis for his international career when he does at last get to where the expectation takes him.
At the same age Belgium’s leading goalscorer is now, Lionel Messi had 26 goals in 70 caps. Wayne Rooney had 26 goals in 68 caps. But none of the three including Ronaldo had quite plundered the ratio of more than one every two games that the Belgian has managed. Only Neymar, with 56 goals in 87 caps and 15 months older than Lukaku, is around the same age and currently scoring at a greater rate.
It is a World Cup finals that has seen the return for some of the leading nations to the big striker in the traditional centre-forward role – Olivier Giroud for France, Diego Costa for Spain, Mario Mandzukic for Croatia and Lukaku for Belgium.
Hazard’s outspoken criticism of Lukaku’s performance in the first half against Panama has hinted at the frustrations that he can cause among team-mates, however much the players have since sought to defuse the comments.
“It’s not easy playing with a man missing. At half-time, I told him we needed him,” Hazard said. “He’d been hiding out a bit up front. But once he got in there, involved in the game, like magic, he scored two. I hope he understands that now.”
Nevertheless, the style of the international game seems to suit Lukaku and Hazard is another leading player whose goals to caps record – 22 in 85 – does not bear comparison with that of his international team-mate.
Martinez had said that his team were ready to deal with what he anticipated would be a back five of Tunisia that would sit deep for long periods of the game as they did against England and try to counter-attack Belgium.
“We need to be ourselves,” he said. “In the second half against Panama we shook off that feeling of fear at losing in a World Cup. The focus has to be on being ourselves but also to be wary of them.” His squad is fit aside from defenders Vincent Kompany and Thomas Vermaelen.
At the current rate, Lukaku is on course to be Europe’s greatest international goalscorer, providing that Ronaldo does not leave the bar set too high.
One of the only drawbacks for the Belgian is that he has already raised the standard by which he is measured extremely high indeed.