BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium want a solution to the impasse between their coach and star goalkeeper but even after winning the Champions League on Saturday, Thibaut Courtois will not be called up for this month’s European Championship, the Belgian football association’s technical director Franck Vercauteren said on Sunday.
While Belgium have named their squad for the tournament in Germany, they have until June 7 to make changes and Courtois’s role in helping Real Madrid to beat Borussia Dortmund at Wembley on Saturday has raised questions again about a late call-up.
The giant goalkeeper walked out on the Belgian squad a year ago in a row over the captaincy with coach Domenico Tedesco and two months later suffered a severe knee injury, which kept him sidelined until last month when he made his return for Real.
The enmity between coach and goalkeeper has simmered since, with Courtois accusing Tedesco of a breach of trust and the coach spending the last year deflecting persistent questioning about the spat.
But Vercauteren told a press conference there would be no late call-up for the 32-year-old, regularly hailed as 'the world's best goalkeeper'.
"Unfortunately, we’ll play the European Championship without him. So now we no longer have to focus on that. It is the job of the federation to smooth out the wrinkles. That is absolutely a must.
"We never doubted his qualities or that he would not be fit. So we must stop the matter now. Signals have been given that we must respect," Vercauteren added.
When naming his squad last week, Tedesco said: “Courtois was honest, he was clear and he was really early in the way he communicated (that he did not want to play at the Euros).
“He knows his body best. It is different to play every three-four days at a tournament like the Euros. The last information we took into consideration was that he is not ready for the Euros and, of course, then we planned with the players who are able to play,” the coach said when naming the squad five days ago.
Courtois’s father Thierry told Belgian television after Saturday’s final that his son was hoping to engineer a rapprochement.
“Hopefully the problem can be sorted out,” he said in London.
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Clare Fallon)
