Chelsea’s Roméo Lavia won’t be part of the Belgium U21 squad for the ongoing international break.
The midfielder has repeatedly struggled with injuries since joining Chelsea for £53m from Southampton in August 2023.
Since then, he has been on the sidelines for just over 600 days, missing 98 matches. The 22-year-old featured regularly since the start of this month, making seven appearances.
Premier League 2025/26
Appearances8
Started2
Minutes per game28
Total minutes played221
At the weekend, Liam Rosenior started him in the Blues’ 3-0 league defeat to Everton and replaced him with Andrey Santos in the 57th minute.
Phsyio David Bombeke worked closely with him for a year and in 2025, he questioned the midfielder’s fitness situation.
Despite featuring regularly in recent weeks, he won’t represent his country during this international break. Belgium U21 manager Gill Swerts appears to have approached him for a place in the squad.
On Sunday, Chelsea confirmed on their official website Lavia has received a call up from Swerts, before deleting it later. This led to confusion in Belgium whether the player will represent Jonge Duivels.
Blues official website cause for confusion
Het Nieuwsblad cover it and mention the Chelsea player will be part of Swerts’s squad this month.
However, they insist there has been no official communication from the Belgium FA so far on this subject.
La Dernière Heure decided to investigate further and insist the west London club jumping the gun is surprising because Swerts didn’t call up Roméo Lavia.
The newspaper found out Lavia won’t be representing Belgium U21 in the coming days because he rejected the call up. Therefore, it was confusing when Chelsea initially reported it on their website.
Lavia doesn’t want to leave the Premier League side and wants to use this break to work on further improving his fitness.
He played one match each for Belgium U21, against Scotland in June 2022 and the senior team so far. His only appearance for Belgium was in a friendly against Germany three years ago.
International break fixtures
Belgium
Friendly v USA on March 28th
Friendly v Mexico on April 1st [UK time]
Belgium U21
European qualifiers v Austria U21 in the on March 27th
Friendly v Netherlands U21 on March 30th