Champions League final: Lukaku’s great career marred by unfortunate moments

When it most mattered in the crunch situations, luck has deserted Lukaku. He, instead, has inadvertently been a stumbling block for his teams.

Lukaku couldn’t get out of the way of Dimarco’s goal-bound header in the Champions League final. | Photo Credit: AFP

Romelu Lukaku is a proven goal-scorer with several accolades to his name.

He is the top goal-scorer for the Belgium men’s national team, has over 250 goals at the club level and has a league title in both Belgium and Italy. He has also played for some of the biggest clubs in the world in Manchester United, Chelsea and Inter Milan.

But, in recent times, when it most mattered in the crunch situations, luck has deserted Lukaku. The 30-year-old, instead, has inadvertently been a stumbling block for his teams.

In the Champions League final with Inter Milan trailing 1-0 to Manchester City, Lukaku failed to equalise with a free header in the dying minutes of the game. With more than half a goal to aim at from six yards out, the striker hit it straight at City ‘keeper Ederson.

And just after City had taken the lead, Inter came close to levelling the scores when Federico Dimarco’s looping header crashed against the crossbar before getting on the end of the rebound again.

But, this time, his goal-bound header was cleared just before the line by his teammate, Lukaku, who couldn’t get out of the way.

The moment was reminiscent of his unintentional block from Alexis Sanchez’s header in the final minutes of the match, which denied Inter a path into the knockout stages of the Champions League back in 2020.

And not too long ago at the World Cup in Qatar, with Belgium needing to win its final group game against Croatia, Lukaku squandered three big chances which knocked his team out early.