Netherland 1-1 Belgium, Friendly: Thibaut Courtois' red eye takes center stage

Thibaut Courtois didn't even play in Belgium's 1-1 draw with the Netherlands on Wednesday, but still managed to be basically the only thing worth noting from a 90-minute low-key friendly exercise in Amsterdam.

UPDATE: Eden Hazard apparently "limped off" at the end of the match, though that's most likely due to the incident being the final action of the match.  It could be anything; it's probably nothing.  Perhaps he got kicked, or got a touch of a cramp, or whatever. I'm not too worried. (The match reports did not mention it at all.)

Not what I wanted to see. Hazard limping at the end of the game after a heavy challenge pic.twitter.com/cp99y8QqOm

— FPL Savvy (@FPLSavvy) November 9, 2016

With Simon Mignolet given the start and Courtois on the bench, it looked like manager Roberto Martinez was throwing a token appearance-bone to his backup goalkeeper ... until the cameras panned to Chelsea man and revealed a rather evil-looking left eye.  OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT CAST IT OUT T-BO.

Have already seen some 'eye injury' reports on Thibaut Courtois, but he played with a red eye against Everton. Nothing to worry about. #cfc pic.twitter.com/e5nLfEyjNq

— Kristof Terreur (@HLNinEngeland) November 9, 2016

Twitter-med claimed it was possibly conjunctivitis (i.e. pink eye), but it seemed to be affecting the eye-ball only and a bit more severely.  One of my dog's has cherry eye (i.e. inflammation of the third eyelid), and it basically looked like an inflamed version of that.  Whatever it is, Courtois assured everyone that it's nothing to worry about...

Well, okay, if you say so, but if you start talking in an Austrian accent, just remember to spare the people in Chelsea shirts.

@thibautcourtois #Thibautminator ? pic.twitter.com/uvXqwTgnzJ

— ChelseaFC_Lat (@ChelseaFC_Lat) November 10, 2016

In actual match action, freshly shaven Eden Hazard started and playing the full game (whyyyy??) and Michy Batshuayi didn't play at all (whyyyy???).  Hazard was apparently made the permanent captain ahead of the match, having served as the interim captain in Vincent Kompany's long-term absence.  Kompany was back for this game but Hazard kept his armband.  And then Kompany picked up an injury in the warm-ups because of course he did.  Sad.

Hazard and Belgium started brightly, but Netherlands grabbed the only goal of the first half with a penalty.  Then neither team really cared about things until Yannick Carrasco equalized with a rather lucky deflection in the 82nd minute, making up for Lukaku's impressive miss from about three inches out minutes earlier. Belgium almost won it in the remaining 10 minutes, but Hazard was denied by Maarten Stekelenburg who just a few days ago looked like he couldn't save [insert funny analogy here] let alone a well-placed curling shot.

Not that it mattered because international friendlies don't matter.  But hey, it was a bit of football in the wasteland of the international break.