Brussels, June 12 (TNS): Romelu Lukaku scored twice as Belgium eased to victory against Costa Rica by 4-1, in their final World Cup warm-up match.<\/p>\n
Belgium, England’s Group G opponents, were again without injured defender Vincent Kompany in Brussels, while Eden Hazard limped off in the 70th minute.<\/p>\n
Bryan Ruiz volleyed Costa Rica ahead on 24 minutes before Napoli striker Dries Mertens equalized from close range.<\/p>\n
Lukaku scored either side of half-time and then set up Michy Batshuayi to tap home Belgium’s fourth.<\/p>\n
Belgium begins their World Cup campaign against Panama on Monday, while Costa Rica faces Serbia in their first game in Group E on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Belgium boss Roberto Martinez said Hazard came off with a dead leg but added: “It’s nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n
“I really enjoyed his performance. He was sharp and strong, he was majestic.”<\/p>\n
Luiz’s goal came from a poor clearance from Jan Vertonghen, the Tottenham centre-back only heading towards the edge of the box where the former Fulham midfielder connected first time into the bottom corner.<\/p>\n
Belgium then dominated the game, with Hazard, Kevin de Bruyne, and Mertens a constant trouble to the Costa Rican defense.<\/p>\n
Hazard’s deflected shot fell into the path of Mertens for an easy tap-in and Lukaku volleyed in Merten’s cross.<\/p>\n
Lukaku added a towering header on 50 minutes, before unselfishly squaring to Batshuayi to score, before he was substituted.<\/p>\n
courtesy: (BBC)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brussels, June 12 (TNS): Romelu Lukaku scored twice as Belgium eased to victory against Costa Rica by 4-1, in their final World Cup warm-up match. Belgium, England’s Group G opponents, were again without injured defender Vincent Kompany in Brussels, while Eden Hazard limped off in the 70th minute. Bryan Ruiz volleyed Costa Rica ahead on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68652,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68650\/revisions\/68652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}