Fernando Torres has been named in Spain’s European Championships squad despite a mixed season. The Chelsea striker has been in inconsistent form this season but seems to have returned to something close to his best in the run in this season.
Torres had failed to impress in the early stages of his Chelsea career since his British record transfer from Liverpool last January. But a series of impressive individual performances in the latter half of this season coinciding with Chelsea’s revival under Roberto Di Matteo has been enough for Torres to secure his place in the Spanish squad.
Valencia’s striker Roberto Soldado has been left out of Spain’s squad despite having scored a hat trick for his country in March. He missed out to Alvaro Negredo. Aside from that the squad was widely as expected. Carles Puyol and David Villa are absent through injury and Adrian Lopez of Atletico misses out despite scoring on his international debut this week. Manchester United’s David De Gea has missed out despite being called up to the provisional squad.
Del Bosque had been keen to give David Villa every chance to prove his fitness and was eager to take the Barcelona striker to the Championships if remotely possible. Villa though ruled himself out, having not played since breaking his leg in December’s World Club Championships with Barcelona.
Del Bosque handed hope to those who missed out telling them to be ready for September and the start of World Cup qualification. “In September, we will make more call-ups so they have to be ready for that. In football, you need to bring in new blood, but not make changes for the sake of it”.
The Spanish go into the tournament as favourites and the standard of players who are missing out on the squad show the incredibly high standard of the reigning World and European Champions.