[Sélection nationale] A list without newbies, but with Veiga?

Three years after his last cap, Eric Veiga has a good chance of being recalled this Thursday by Luc Holtz to the Roud Léiwen, who will face Northern Ireland and Belarus in the Nations League in September.

Friends in life, Luc Holtz and his French counterpart Didier Deschamps will announce today, three hours apart (11 a.m. for Holtz, 2 p.m. for Deschamps), the players called up for their respective Nations League matches, including the 4^e edition begins in September.

But while the list of “DD” will normally include at least one big newcomer, which would not be a surprise, with the presence of winger Michael Olise (22 years old), sparkling in 2024 with Crystal Palace and at the Paris Olympic Games and transferred in the meantime to Bayern Munich, that of the Luxembourg coach should probably not include any rookie. Unless, of course, the interminable discussions with Dany Mota have recently found, in the greatest secrecy, a happy outcome for the Roud Léiwen.

Failing that, it will probably include a great comeback: Eric Veiga. Not called up to the national team since September 2022, and not appearing in the Luxembourg jersey since October 12, 2021 and his late entry into play in Portugal in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers (5-0 defeat), the left-back with 6 caps has fully recovered from the rupture of the cruciate ligaments in his knee that kept him off the field between May 2023 and June 2024.

He even played three Portuguese Liga matches with his club AVS Futebol (ex-UD Vilafranquense, where he has been playing since 2020), promoted, the last as a starter, Sunday against Guimarães (1-0 victory). And this, in a rather new role of left winger which could give ideas to Holtz, still deprived in the attacking corridors of Yvandro Borges and Vincent Thill, also seriously injured in the knee at the beginning of the year.

Mustafic and Selimovic out, Philipps and Rupil apply

A return for Veiga is all the more plausible as Mica Pinto, the presumed starter at left-back, has been without a club since Tuesday and the termination of his contract with Vitesse Arnhem (relegated to the Dutch second division), and lacking rhythm, his last official match dating back to May 19.

Having missed the two prestigious international friendlies in June (France and Belgium), but apparently fit for duty, Pinto should nevertheless also be back in the squad. Just like Edvin Muratovic, who also missed out in June (Achilles tendon), but has already scored twice in the Polish D2, including one this weekend against Sébastien Thill’s Stal Rzeszow (2-2), with his new club Odra Opole.

Timothé Rupil too? The hypothesis holds up: relaunched by Schalke 04 after a truncated 2023/2024 season and the end of his contract at Mainz, the 21-year-old midfielder (10 caps) has just made five starts in the Regionaliga with the Gelsenkirchen club’s reserves, and is a ready-made solution to the very probable absence of Mirza Mustafic (FK Sarajevo), still bothered by his shoulder.

Unless Wiltz’s Chris Philipps, who has become “an option” again (according to Luc Holtz) thanks to two courageous and serious performances against the Blues and in Belgium, is preferred to him.

But the absence of Mustafic and the fractured wrist of Vahid Selimovic (now at Hermannstadt, in the Romanian D1) are, given their place in the respective hierarchies of midfielders and central defenders, only secondary concerns for Luc Holtz, who will be without Maxime Chanot and Danel Sinani next Thursday in Northern Ireland, who are suspended.

But since there will be a 2^e day, three days later (Sunday September 8 at 3 p.m.) at the Stade de Luxembourg against Belarus, both will appear on the list of the Roud Léiwen coach.