Belgium will progress past the group stages of Euro 2020 ‘quite easily’ without Kevin De Bruyne and Eden Hazard fully fit, talkSPORT has been told.
De Bruyne suffered a fracial fracture following a collision with Chelsea’s Antonio Rudiger in Saturday’s Champions League final, while injury-plagued Eden Hazard is struggling with form and confidence, with both doubts for the start of the tournament.
But Belgian football expert Kristof Terreur does not envisage Roberto Martinez’s men having too many problems in the early stages of this summer’s tournament – even without their key duo.
“If we’re missing Kevin De Bruyne in the first game, it won’t be a huge problem because Youri Tielemans will step up,” he told talkSPORT.
“That’s another guy who performed well in the Premier League this season and is not a regular.
“We all think we will survive the group stages quite easily and then we will have our players up to our real level.
“Eden Hazard told us that he was still struggling with his thigh and will need some individual training and games to get match fit again.
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“The first round will be used for that, unless we suddenly get beaten by Russia and Denmark, then we are in trouble.
“You never know what will happen at a tournament, but if you just look at our squad, we should be able to go with a few injuries.”
On De Bruyne’s injury blow and more, Terreur added: “He’s our most important player at the moment and everybody was worried after we saw the images.
“There was the panic that he wouldn’t be fit for the Euros but then the reassuring news that he won’t need any surgery. He will be monitored during the week and see if he will be fine.
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“I think he will be okay. We will have the masked ginger rather than the Masked Singer.
“At the point when he was speaking, it was something with excessive power and should have been a red. It was an emotional reaction of a national manager who fears losing his best player.
“He already has his worries with Eden Hazard who is not having a great time at Real Madrid, he’s always injured.
“Axel Witsel is the most important player for the balance in the team and is fighting to be fit in time.
“He has a lot of doubts in his team, luckily he still has Romelu Lukaku, who we can count on.”
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