Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany withdraws from Belgium squad

Manchester City’s captain, Vincent Kompany , has withdrawn from the Belgium squad for their friendlies against Italy and Spain .

The 29-year-old, who was not involved in full training with his country on Tuesday or Wednesday, was the subject of a club-versus-country row during the previous international break when he played in a Euro 2016 qualifier against Israel despite assertions from City’s manager, Manuel Pellegrini , that he was unfit because of a calf injury .

There will no repeat of those arguments this month, though, after Belgium confirmed he had left the squad and been replaced by the Anderlecht midfielder Steven Defour .

A tweet from the team’s account read : “ . @vincentkompany left the squad , out for Italy and Spain . @StevenDefour joined the group at noon . ”

In October Kompany was named in the Belgium squad despite missing five successive fixtures for his club side because of injury, and Pellegrini had declared he was not fit enough to feature in the games against Andorra or Israel.

However, despite missing out against Andorra when his international colleagues booked their Euro 2016 qualification, Belgium boss Marc Wilmots started Kompany in the fixture against Israel to provoke Pellegrini’s ire .

“I was not pleased because we sent Vincent with some medical report that he was not able to play but, as the manager of Belgium said, he can do what he wants in the international break,” the Chilean stated when Kompany returned for club duty. “He can use the players and he wanted to use him .

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Janitor earning $327,000 a year caught ‘slacking off’

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