BIOGRAPHY
boss Ariel Jacobs, the man who gave
him his debut.
Following a difficult first season at
Chelsea – which was mainly spent on
the first-team bench or playing for the
under-23 side – what the young Lukaku
required above all was Premier League
first-team football and Clarke would
provide it, persuading him to join West
Brom on a single-season loan.
The result was a string of impressive
performances and 17 top-flight goals.
No wonder Lukaku describes Clarke
as the figure who
released his talent.
Fastidious,
opinionated
and an avowed
enemy of untapped
potential, Koeman
certainly got the
best out of Lukaku
at Everton in the 2016-17 campaign, in
which the Belgian front man bagged no
fewer than 25 Premier League goals.
Apparently the Dutch coach and the
young Belgian whippersnapper did not
always see eye to eye, but the chemistry
worked. “With Romelu we had enough
fights about how he needs to press, how
he needs to run, how he needs to move,”
Koeman told the Liverpool Echo. “But in
the box, with opportunities to score, he
is one of the best.”
A run of poor results saw Koeman
sacked early the following season and,
not without justification he blamed his
fate on the vast hole left by the sale a
few months previously of Lukaku.
As for Jacobs, the coach who took him
out of the school classroom in the spring
of 2009 and found
a place for him in
his first team, onehe does best: hurtling towards goal and
linking with other attackers. You should
not play off Lukaku; you play with him.
Release the Lukaku handbrake and
the effects can be devastating.
Take, for example, the goal that he
created for Kevin De Bruyne in Belgium’s
2-1 victory over Brazil in the 2018 World
Cup quarter-finals, gaining possession
inside his own half, surging forward with
pace and power, and then playing in De
Bruyne to fire home.
Then there was his brilliant strike
in Inter’s 2-1 Serie A win at Brescia in
October, when a barrelling run along
the right flank was followed by a smooth
inside move and a delightful left-footed
curler into the far corner of the net.
He was not enjoying his football at
Manchester United and it showed in
his demeanour. With Inter, however, it’s
a completely different story. The side
are firing on all cylinders under Conte,
trophies are on the cards, and he and his
coach very much appreciate one another.
Lukaku always knew the coach was
on his side. “My relationship with Conte
started when Belgium met his Italy in a
friendly [in 2015],” he explained on Italian
TV show Tiki Taka. “I noticed he playedwit h two forwards, Eder and Pelle, and
that af ter only 15 minutes Pelle had three
good goalscoring chances.
“I realised that in such a playing style,
in such a system, I would have a lot of
opportunities to score myself and that
it would enhance my physical abilities.
“I loved his type of game. The two
front men have a fundamental role.
They have fun and a lot of chances
are created.
“After the game we talked a little
and he told me he was going to take
over at Chelsea. But it wasn’t possible for
me to go there [as I was under contract
at Everton]. I told him that if he went
somewhere else in the future, I would
follow him.”
Lukaku cites five coaches as the most
influential in his career: Conte, Martinez,
Steve Clarke at West Brom, Ronald
Koeman at Everton and ex-AnderlechtMAY 13, 2012
Nine months after
joining Chelsea
he starts his first
Premier League
game, against
Blackburn Rovers.AUG 18, 2012
Now on loan at West
Brom, he scores
his first goal in the
Premier League in
a 3–0 win against
Liverpool.AUG 30, 2013
Appears as a sub for
Chelsea in the UEFA
Super Cup against
Bayern Munich but
misses the deciding
penalty in the
shoot-out.JUL 30, 2014
After a season on
loan at Everton he
signs a permanent
deal for a club record
fee of £28m.On the up...Everton’s
record signing (above)
and beating Brazil in
the 2018 World Cup
quarter-finals (right)“Martinez released me from
international prison. [Before he
became Belgium coach] I’d play
good matches and bad. Now I only
put in good performances”