Julen Lopetegui has given his first list as new Spanish national team manager this morning in Madrid. The Basque coach has included five Real Madrid players: Daniel Carvajal, Sergio Ramos, Marco Asensio, Lucas Vázquez and Álvaro Morata. The former Real Madrid goalkeeper and Spanish captain, Iker Casillas, was left out.
The main surprise in the list for the Real Madrid fans is the inclusion of Marco Asensio. The youngster is living a dream in the start of the season. Firstly, he started training with Real Madrid and travelled to the States for the pre-season tour. His good trainings made him gain a position in the squad and Zidane confirmed Asensio will be playing for Real Madrid this season.
After that, the French coach included him him in the starting eleven to play against Sevilla in the European Supercup. Asensio scored a superb goal to open the result. Afterwards, Asensio played in the first game in La Liga in Anoeta and scored another goal with a chip over Rulli. And to finish his great August, Lopetegui called him to play for the very first time with the Spanish national team.
Apart from this, Daniel Carvajal and Sergio Ramos will be the defenders with Julen Lopetegui. Sergio Ramos will be one of the captains because Iker Casillas was not included in the list -a huge surprise for Spanish fans- and Andrés Iniesta is injured.
In the attacking line, Lucas Vázquez and Álvaro Morata will also defend the Spanish national colours. Vázquez was included for the first time in the Spanish squad to play the Euro but he only had minutes in the last game against Italy. Morata was the main striker for Vicente del Bosque and now Lopetegui has trusted him again. Morata will fight with Diego Costa for a place in the starting eleven.
The bad news are that both Isco and Nacho are out of the list. The playmaker was also ruled out from the Euro after a disappointing end of the season. He hasn’t started well this new season either and he’s not playing a lot of minutes. For the same reason, Nacho was left out although he played several games with Del Bosque.
