Less than 24 hours ahead of the announcement of the Spain squad, there is plenty of anticipation surrounding Luis de la Fuente’s first call-up.
In particular, central defence is set to be an area of questions marks. Sergio Ramos has been ruled out and retired, while previous regular Eric Garcia is unlikely to be considered.
It had been thought that Real Sociedad stalwart Robin Le Normand might be persuaded to switch his allegiances from France to Spain. He has given the go ahead, but Diario AS say that his Spanish passport is yet to arrive and as a result he will miss out.
With the sizable challenge of Erling Haaland on the horizon, de la Fuente will have to look at alternatives. They go on to highlight that David Garcia of Osasuna is not only the tallest alternative in the preliminary list, but also wins more aerial battles than the others. Nacho Fernandez was also mentioned.
Manchester City defender Aymeric Laporte is likely to start on the left side of defence, but does not excel (neither is he poor at) winning the aerial battles. Garcia has been playing excellent football over the last two seasons, and few players rise into the air with as much authotiy as Garcia.
