Thibaut Courtois has told Belgium he will not play in the Nations League this season, stepping away from the competition entirely in an agreement struck with new national team coach Mark van Bommel. The Real Madrid goalkeeper, 34, will remain available for Euro qualifying, and insists the decision is nothing like a retirement from international football, as reported by Marca.
The Courtois Nations League decision, in his own words
Courtois broke the news to Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, and there was no ambiguity about it. “I have taken the decision not to play the whole Nations League campaign with the Red Devils,” he said. “Unless the coach has injury problems, in which case I could be called up exceptionally.”
The tournament begins on 24 September, which makes the timing deliberate rather than accidental. Van Bommel is only just into the job after Belgium’s World Cup ended at the hands of Spain under Rudi Garcia, and losing a goalkeeper of Courtois’ standing for a whole competition is not the start any new coach wants. This is not a retirement, though: Courtois expects to be back for Euro qualifying.
Van Bommel accepted it — with a warning
The Belgium manager did not fight the decision, but nor did he hand out any guarantees in return. Van Bommel told Courtois that if he steps out now, he cannot be promised the gloves when he steps back in.
Courtois relayed the terms himself, and to his credit he did not dress them up. “If the goalkeeper who plays the Nations League convinces, Van Bommel could continue with him,” he said. “But I want to fight for my place. I want to show that I am the number one again.”
That last phrase is worth sitting with. A goalkeeper who has won the Champions League with Real Madrid, and who is arguably still the best in the world in his position, is openly framing his international place as something to be won back rather than assumed. He knows exactly what he is trading away.
What the Courtois Nations League absence means for Real Madrid
From a Madridista point of view, the calculation is a good deal simpler. Los Blancos get their most important defensive player back from an international break with fresh legs instead of two more long-haul trips in his 34-year-old body.
Courtois has carried this team through the opening weeks. He was, by some distance, the outstanding figure in the 2-1 Champions League win over Inter Milan at the Santiago Bernabéu, to the point that José Mourinho said afterwards that if his goalkeeper had not been chosen as man of the match that night, he never would be — the award instead went to captain Federico Valverde. We covered the reaction to that performance in full.
Iker Casillas, of all people, framed the same point with a joke this week at a LaLiga event in Madrid. Asked whether Courtois belonged in the season’s top three players, the former Real Madrid captain replied: “It’s good to have Courtois in the top three. But if the goalkeeper is the best player in the team, that’s a bad sign,” per Mundo Deportivo. It got a laugh. It also happens to describe Madrid’s first month rather well, with the side winning games without convincing and the Bernabéu making its impatience heard.
Which is precisely why the Nations League opt-out matters at club level. Real Madrid face a season on three fronts, with Rodrygo, Ferland Mendy and Éder Militão all working back from long-term problems and Andriy Lunin the only senior alternative in goal. Every international window Courtois skips is a window in which he is training at Valdebebas rather than flying, and at 34 that arithmetic adds up quickly across a campaign that runs to May.
Courtois is already among the Yashin Trophy nominees for 2026, and the version of him Madrid have had in September is the version that earned that nomination. Belgium will feel this. Mourinho, quietly, will not mind at all.
