Belgian national team head coach Roberto Martinez feels that Inter striker Romelu Lukaku is likely to be fit enough to play in at least one of the Red Devils’ group stage matches at the upcoming World Cup.

Speaking at a press conference after announcing the squad list for the tournament, as reported by FCInterNews, Martinez stated that the 29-year-old has made good progress on his recovery in the past few days and is likely to be ready for the group stage at some point.

Lukaku is still recovering from a recurrence of a thigh injury.

However, the timeline of the recovery is such that there looks to be a good chance that the 29-year-old will be fit in time to play for his country at the World Cup.

Further medical tests and monitoring of the progress of his recovery will be needed to confirm that Lukaku will be fit enough to be in the squad for any of the Red Devils’ group stage matches.

However, according to Martinez, things look fairly optimistic at the moment.

“He’s not completely fit from a medical point of view, that’s obvious given the fact that he’s still receiving treatment for his recovery,” the coach noted.

“But even by the time of November 22, 24 hours before the group stage opener [against Canada] he has a chance of being fit.”

“A World Cup has two phases,” Martinez noted, “one is the group stage, you can prepare for that one, another is the knockout stage, and we’re very confident that he’ll be ready particularly for that stage.”

“We’re taking all possible scenarios into consideration and will make our final evaluations on November 22.”

“We don’t exclude the possibility that he’ll be ready to play in the group stage, the situation can change every day.”

“The last three days have been positive,” Martinez said of Lukaku’s recovery.

“My feeling is that he will be able to play one of the three group stage matches,” he continued of the Inter striker.