The 2018 World Cup is over, and it proved to be an eventful one for Romelu Lukaku. The Belgian striker saw his country finish third in the tournament and on a personal note he won the Bronze in the Adidas Golden Boot award.
Not that bad a haul for the Manchester United striker who was an injury doubt before the tournament began. He’d missed several weeks of Premier League action and the FA Cup final in May. Thankfully he was fit in time to play in the pre-World Cup friendlies for Belgium and that helped him get fully fit for the finals.
As soon as the draw was made for the group stages at the 2018 World Cup, it was clear that Belgium would be scoring a fair few goals in their opening two games. Panama and Tunisia weren’t going to be offering that much resistance and that opinion was proved with both Belgium and England scoring plenty of goals.
The Goal Rush Begins
Lukaku certainly prospered in those two opening World Cup fixtures. Belgium’s opening fixture, which seems an age ago now, the expected goal rush didn’t happen until the second half of the game against Panama but the Belgians ran out as comfortable 3-0 winners with Lukaku scoring two in the space of six minutes. This put himself in with a good chance of winning the Golden Boot award for the 2018 World Cup.
More goals were expected in their second group fixture as Belgium took on Tunisia. The Tunisians had so nearly grabbed a draw with England in their opening fixture but lost to a last-minute Harry Kane goal. The African side didn’t quite show the same amount of resistance in their game against Belgium going down by five goals to two. Lukaku was again in fine scoring form and hit two goals in the first half to take him to four for the tournament level at that stage with Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo. He failed to get a hat-trick though but four goals from his opening two games was a great start to the tournament for the Belgian striker.
Goals Dry Up
With qualification for the last sixteen already guaranteed, Lukaku was one of many Belgian players left out of the side for the final group match with England so he didn’t get a chance to add to his four goals and catch up with Harry Kane. The England striker had hit a hat-trick against Panama to go to five goals for the tournament.
The knock-out stages of the 2018 World Cup weren’t to be full of Lukaku goals. In matches against Japan, Brazil, France and England, he failed to add to his total of four goals. Belgium may have finished third in the tournament but Lukaku wasn’t scoring the goals that got them to that position. He took Bronze in the Adidas Golden Boot award due to the fact he also had one assist. All in all, a decent return for Lukaku, but you sense he may well think that he could have done a lot better.
