Romelu Lukaku marked his return from injury in the worst possible fashion with Belgium suffering a shock defeat at the hands of Morocco on Sunday. The 29-year-old was handed his first set of minutes at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar but did very little to help his side as they conceded twice in the afternoon's affair.
Lukaku had been training on his own since arriving at the Belgian national team's training camp. During the group opener against Canada, the Inter Milan striker was pictured in his side's dugout nervously looking on as they struggled to breach the defense of the Canucks.
Against Morocco, the former Chelsea man was named in the squad list but started the afternoon on the bench. He was subsequently introduced into the game in the 81st minute, eight minutes after Romain Saiss had given the Atlas Lions a surprise lead.
Lukaku enters the game for Belgium pic.twitter.com/bcAFMw8mlA
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Two minutes into additional time, Belgium paid the price for their ponderous display once again, conceding for the second time in the encounter. Aboukhlal buried Hakim Ziyech's cutback into the roof of the net to trigger wild celebrations in the stands of Al Thumama Stadium from thousands of Morocco fans.
The outcome of the clash fired Morocco past Belgium to the top of Group F on four points, with Croatia and Canada set to go head-to-head later on Sunday. On the contrary, Belgium became just the third side to pick up a defeat in their 50th game at the FIFA World Cup, after England in 2002 (vs Brazil) and Spain in 2010 (vs Switzerland). The Red Devils have only scored fewer goals after two games at a World Cup once before (none in 1930) – they'd scored eight goals across their first two games in 2018.
