BEVERLY HILLS, May 24, (THEWILL) – There are not a few surprises in the team sheet released by the coach of the Spanish senior men’s national football team Luis Enrique. In fact, for the first time in history, the squad for this summer’s European Championship is the first to be named without a single Real Madrid player in the team.
Injuries to Dani Carvajal and Lucas Vazquez ruled the pair out of contention for places limiting the choices Enrique had to make in their positions. However, it was expected that with Sergio Ramos back from injury and Nacho Fernandez also available in that centre-back position, they will, at the very least, make the list.
Yet, the duo are glaringly missing as it must have been Enrique’s conclusion to leave the injury-troubled Ramos time to fully heal than be rushed into another tortuous campaign. Ramos, who has had a plagued season, featured just five times in 2021 and could risk permanent injury with age no longer on the side of the veteran defender.
The surprise of Nacho’s exclusion is not as easily explainable. The head-scratching concern is that if Enrique could find places for Manchester City’s Eric Garcia and Leeds’ Diego Llorente, how was it impossible to include the Real Madrid’s Nacho.
However that was decided upon means that in a squad list that excluded Marco Asensio, Isco and Alvaro Odriozola, Enrique has now earned himself the record of being the first ever Spanish football team manager to not call up a single Real Madrid player for a major tournament that the country has played.
The closest this had almost happened was way back in 1950, when Luis Molowny was the sole representative of Los Blancos in the Spain squad at the World Cup in Brazil, yet somehow there was capacity to accommodate one.
The Spanish national team has indeed come a long way from the period of the 2018 World Cup, which saw then manager, Julen Lopetegui, include no fewer than five Real players in his squad, yet the record for the highest number of Real players in the team sheet belongs to another team.
That will be the team that Spain sent to the 1988 European Championship. In that selection there were no fewer than eight players from Los Blancos alone, a record which has not been surpassed today and is as far removed from Enrique’s zero as possible.
This time, the most of any club was four. Leading the way was Manchester City with players like Garcia, Aymeric Laporte, Rodri and Ferran Torres. Barcelona are next up with three as Pedri, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba made the squad. Atletico Madrid and Villarreal both come with two. Even the likes of Brighton, Leeds and Wolves have one, but Real are nowhere to be seen.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
