Sometimes a youngster's outstanding physical attributes can convince a coach it is worth taking the time to try to turn the athlete into a footballer. Theo Walcott and Micah Richards spring to mind. Very rarely does there appear a player who is blessed both with phenomenal physical qualities and instinctive football brilliance. That is why there is such excitement about Romelu Lukaku, the Anderlecht striker who has just finished Belgium's regular season as top scorer – at the age of 16.

Lukaku was born in Antwerp in May 1993 and apparently has a birth certificate to prove it, which is a good thing because otherwise he'd have a hard job getting people to believe he is only half way through his teens. Measuring nearly 6ft 4in and weighing in at over 14 stone, Lukaku outjumps and outmuscles adults every week.

He also outruns them because in addition to his extraordinary strength and awesome aerial ability, he is endowed with formidable speed. To top it all off, he regularly outwits his elders, showing natural positional sense and finishing moves with the poise and intelligence of an expert. He has been hailed as the new Didier Drogba. And he'd like to play for Chelsea.

After joining Anderlecht aged 12 and plundering 121 goals in 87 matches with the club's youth teams, Lukaku signed his first professional contract last May and within months became the youngest player ever to appear in the Champions League. Lyon dumped the Belgians out but they went on to have a respectable run in the Europa League, in which Lukaku scored four times (including these two at Ajax) before Hamburg ended Anderlecht's involvement.

In the domestic league he hit 15 goals in 24 games before the league split into a new play-off format two weeks ago. What is more, he started only 15 of those 24 matches, and he also began on the bench last night as Anderlecht won at Gent in the play-offs. For all Lukaku's precocity, the manager Ariel Jacobs uses him as sparingly as possible. That seems wise – the player did, after all, have to be up for school this morning.

Belgium have reared a slew of gifted young players in recent years (Eden Hazard, Marouane Fellaini, Steven Defour, Axel Witsel and Kevin Mirallas to name a few) but none created as much excitement as Lukaku has. For the first time since the emergence of Enzo Scifo, Belgians believe they have a player who is going to be not just very good, but one of the game's greats. The Belgian media trumpets "Lukaku-mania", of which a clear demonstration came last November when at a charity auction of jerseys worn by the domestic league's best players, Lukaku's fetched €4,511, more than the combined total of the nine next most popular.

Within weeks of his debut fans began clamouring for him to be promoted from Belgium's Under-21s – for whom he scored once in five games – to the senior team. The manager Dick Advocaat eventually gave him his first cap in last month's friendly against Croatia. He played for 75 minutes and though he did not score he looked at home on the international stage, combining cleverly with the players around him – at Anderlecht he has an almost subliminal understanding with the Moroccan midfielder Moubarak Boussoufa, who has supplied many of his chances, so it was promising that he showed he can link immediately with others, too.

Anderlecht have sought to shield him from the limelight as much as possible but in his first press conference two months ago he suggested he had the personal qualities – humility and focus – required to make the most of his sporting ones. "Are you nervous about facing the press?" came the first question. "Not at all," he replied calmly. "This is the sort of thing professionals have to do. It's up to me to concentrate to make sure I don't say the wrong thing."

Q: "What do you think of all the comparison with Drogba?"

A: "It's an honour. Didier, along with Adebayor, is my idol. But he is a world-class attacker and has scored more than 100 goals for Chelsea whereas I'm just starting out. It would be better to see how I compare when I'm his age."

Q. What do you think when you hear talk of Chelsea bidding £10m for you?

A. I'm a bit shocked. I'll leave all that to Papa.

"Papa" is Roger Lukaku, a former striker who played for several modest clubs in Belgium and Turkey during the 90s and won nearly 50 caps for the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has helped nurture his son's talent and, as his main career counsellor, also intends to ensure his son misses the pitfalls that have ruined the careers of many promising prospects, notably Nii Lamptey, the former Anderlecht player who once had the world at his feet but who never fulfilled his potential due to exploitation by agents and hangers-on.

Lukaku is reported to earn €500,000 per year at Anderlecht but could likely multiply that salary significantly if he were to join Chelsea, Real Madrid, Milan, Barcelona or Arsenal, the most prominent of the many clubs who have shown an interest in him. The player has hinted at a preference for Chelsea but father and son insist he will at least finish school before leaving Anderlecht, which means remaining there until the end of next season. "Anderlecht have been very good to me, I like it here and I may even stay until I'm 20," said the player last month.

Clubs will continue to test that resolve. And when he eventually signs for a giant club, the ones who missed out will perhaps turn their attention to a player making waves in Anderlecht's youth team, where there is an impressive forward just a year younger than Lukaku. His name? Jordan Lukaku, brother of you know who.