Tielemans is thoughtful though, and expansive in his answers, even if sometimes what he says is not quite what you expect to hear.
One of those is around the length of his career and the number of games he has played.
He made his professional debut for Anderlecht at 16. He has played 668 games for club and country and had to pull out of Belgium’s World Cup quarter-final clash with Spain last month after experiencing an issue in the warm-up.
“I feel very good, actually,” he said.
“In that last game, it was just an overload of too many games; too many minutes. Unfortunately, my body could not cope with it anymore.
“We played 120 minutes against Senegal, then played the US a few days later, three days after that we played against Spain.
“In the warm-up, my body just switched off for some reason.
“I do not think I am a player that absolutely needs a rest. Obviously, there are a lot of games, and the manager needs to manage the team, but when I am good, I am good.
“When it does not go well, I will know straight away and I will alert the manager. But it does not happen often.”
