Romeo Lavia
Belgium U21 manager Gill Swerts has cleared up the confusion around Chelsea midfielder Roméo Lavia’s involvement this month.
The 22-year-old has made only one appearance for Belgium U21, against Scotland in 2022.
The Chelsea player made his senior debut in Belgium’s friendly win over Germany in March 2023. He hasn’t made an appearance for them since then.
This is mainly because the midfielder struggled with injuries and fitness since arriving at Stamford Bridge from Southampton in August 2023.
To put it in context, he’s played 1,559 minutes from 37 matches This includes 503 minutes from 15 matches are from this season, with eight Premier League appearances. His statistics per league game this season are as follows.
|Premier League 2025/26||
|---|
|Appearances|8|
|Started|2|
|Minutes per game|28|
|Total minutes played|221|
|||
Lavia has been fit for over a month and has played seven matches for Liam Rosenior’s side in March. Last weekend, he started in the Blues’ 3-0 league defeat to Everton and played 57 minutes.
This would have led to suggestions of him returning to the national team or Swerts’ squad for the March international break.
Swerts on Chelsea agreement for Lavia
The Club World Cup winners initially stated on their official website that Roméo Lavia had made it to Belgium’s U21 squad before deleting it.
On Monday, Sport Witness covered claims from his country’s media he’d declined a call up from Gill Swerts.
Sporza spoke to Jonge Duivels to ask about the message on the English club’s official website. Both the Belgium FA and Chelsea and not Lavia decided he won’t play for his country this month.
“There was a miscommunication. He was on the preliminary selection for the first team, and then there was contact between the federation and Chelsea’s staff,” he said.
“It was sounded out whether he could get minutes for the U21s, but it was decided by mutual agreement not to do so. But Roméo never refused his selection.”
March international break fixtures
Belgium U21
European qualifiers v Austria on March 27th
Friendly v Netherlands on March 30th
Belgium
Friendly v USA on March 28th
Friendly v Mexico on April 1st
🇵🇹 EXCLUSIVE: Maxi Araújo
⏩ Tottenham and Chelsea in contact
➡️ Source informs @UllalIBT
➡️ Further Premier League interest also presenthttps://t.co/K17lRpjlUG #thfc #cfc
— Sport Witness (@Sport_Witness) March 22, 2026