Belgian club Anderlecht don’t get much attention. You see them sometimes in the Europa and Champions but nothing more. Old school fans will tell you about those good old Enzo Scifo/Frank Arnesen days in the 80’s while others remember seeing Jan Koller and Bart Goor play there.
For the Italian Calcio fan? Some can mention Vincent Kompany, Anthony Vanden Borre and Mbark Boussoufa while Roma fans reluctantly remember Christian Whilhelmsson played there before failing miserably in the Capital.
However, those times are a changing for Anderlecht.
Not only are Italian clubs paying close attention to the happenings in the suburbs of Brussels, all of Europe is taking notice because of 16 year old phenom Romelu Lukaku ; ”The Next Drogba/Adebayor ”
Born in 1993, Lukaku scored 121 goals in 88 games in the Anderlecht youth ranks before graduating to the senior squad. He now has 15 goals in 27 games in the Belgian League this season , adding 4 in the Europa League. Lukaku earns his Drogba/Adebayor comparison because of his Congolese roots and massive frame but think of him more as Jozy Altidore 4.0 or imagine Stefano Okaka Chuka forged himself a Belgian passport and changed his date of birth to 1993.
Clearly gifted by nature, Lukaku is 190 cm & 94 kg with an impressive arsenal of skills, pace, speed, power and amazing shot. He’s on his way to becoming the youngest top scorer ever in the Jupiler League and is now part of the senior Belgian National squad as Dick Advocaat loves him.
Belgian’s U21 coach, Jean-François De Sart,who coached the youngster for about 18 seconds had this to say of Lukaku :
“He’s a goal scorer. That’s his primary asset. He’s savvy before the goal and scores easily. He’s exceptional physically and when given a chance, he almost always scores. He has a really good mentality. He always wants to get better, to learn.”
“His technique has to get better, but that’s a logical progression. You can’t ask of a 16-year-old to be complete. You have to get better at every age. He has to get better tactically, too. And his heading needs to improve.”
” We haven’t seen all that Romelu has to offer yet. Right now we’ve seen 50 or 60 percent of his ability. He can do much better.”
He’s not even 17 yet ?!
It’s only normal that the big clubs have gone from taking notice to making offers,
Inter, Real, Bordeaux, Stuttgart and Barça aren’t even shy about it while half the Premiership, especially Everton are also keen.
Romelu is in no hurry to pack his bags. His father Roger, a former player, wants his son to stay at Anderlecht until he finishes school, which will roughly happen around the end of the 2010-11 season
“Like any soccer player he wants to go as far as possible. He wants to play at the highest level in the world. But there are steps, everything in its time. We’ll keep going like that until we get to our goal.”
Of course, Anderlecht are in no hurry to see Lukaku go either. Even if Anderlecht have come to peace with the fact that they’ll have to cash in on Lukaku sooner rather than later. The Belgian Viola are sitting a top the Jupiler League – with an 8 point lead – and would like the youngster to participate in their Champions League push of 2010/11.
Nonetheless, it seems like Milan are quickly moving in for the kill. A report in Il Sussidiario suggests AC Milan are reportedly ready to make a €15 million offer for Lukaku and leave him in Belgium another year before partnering him up with Pato in 2011\12.
Whatever happens I just hope we Serie A fans see get to see Lukaku in the peninsula sometime soon.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
