Goalkeeper: Logan Bailly (Borussia Monchengladbach/GER), Jean-Francois Gillet (Bari/ITA), Silvio Proto (Anderlecht).
Defenders: Toby Alderweireld (Ajax/NED), Laurent Ciman (Standard Liege), Olivier Deschacht (Anderlecht), Guillaume Gillet (Anderlecht), Vincent Kompany (Manchester City/ENG), Nicolas Lombaerts (Zenit/RUS), Daniel Van Buyten (Bayern Munich/GER), Jelle Van Damme (Wolverhampton/ENG), Thomas Vermaelen (Arsenal/ENG).
Midfielders: Kevin De Bruyne (RC Genk), Mehdi Carcela (Standard Liege), Steven Defour (Standard Liege), Marouane Fellaini (Everton/ENG), Jonathan Legear (Anderlecht), Timmy Simons (Nuremberg/GER), Jan Vertonghen (Ajax/NED), Axel Witsel (Standard Liege).
Forwards: Christian Benteke (Standard Liege), Eden Hazard (Lille/FRA), Romelu Lukaku (Anderlecht), Kevin Mirallas (Olympiakos/GRE), Jelle Vossen (RC Genk)
This marks the triumphant return of Timmy Simons to the national team, after being ignominiously dropped by Dick Advocaat. Leekens said he added Simons to the squad for his experience, which makes sense considering how young the rest of the team is. Van Buyten is back from injury, though question marks abound about the fitness of Lombaerts, Legear and Van Damme.
Conspicuous by his absence is Dries Mertens, FC Utrecht's creative midfielder. Leekens has stated that he hasn't called upon Mertens because of the abundance of attacking flank players, though one wonders why De Bruyne is being chosen ahead of the more experienced and proven Mertens (De Bruyne seems to have more potential to be fair and has being playing extremely well with a resurgent KRC Genk).
Right-back remains a problem with the defensively poor Guillaume Gillet looking to battle Laurent Ciman and possibly Toby Aldeweireld for the chance to defend Bastian Schweinsteiger (Vincent Kompany has been mentioned as a possibility there as well, but he was pretty poor as a right-back against Estonia a few years back).
Finally, Jelle Vossen, the current topscorer of the Belgian competition has been called up. Technically very good, Vossen has very nice skill set for the domestic level, but I'm not sure if it will translate to the international game. He'll try to wrest control of the central foward role from Romelu Lukaku, who started to look his normal self after he scored a slightly lucky goal against Partizan Belgrade and Christian Benteke, the young Standard-man (who apparently can score a difficult goal in match against Real Madrid, yet against Sint-Truiden squanders four great chances).
I'll preview the individual games in greater detail, with emphasis on the specific opponents closer to the match dates (Germany is on September 3rd and Turkey is four days later on the 7th). The excitement is palpable!
p.s. Belgium has a new jersey, made by Swiss company Burrda. While it's nowhere near as nice as their previous kit (Nike-produced), it looks kind of like the Belgium jerseys of the 90s and 80s. Let's hope the results follow.
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