Real Madrid have a representative among the newly crowned World Champions. Technically, anyway. Marc Cucurella, the tournament’s best left-back, signed for the club from Chelsea just as the World Cup began. He appeared in the media throughout the tournament as a Real Madrid player, yet he still hasn’t set foot in Valdebebas or played a single minute for Los Blancos.
There was a time when Real Madrid had constant representation in the Spanish national team, with club legends like Fernando Hierro, Raul Gonzalez, Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos serving as long-standing captains of La Roja. Since Euro 2020, though, that relationship has cooled. Some of the snubs looked like outright bias against Madrid players; others, like the squad selections for this World Cup, seemed entirely justified. The truth is Real Madrid simply don’t have many players right now operating at the level required for the national team. Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, on the other hand, have a strong presence.
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The question is whether Cucurella remains the club’s only link to the World Champions in the months and years ahead. It’s a tired cliché, but apt here: don’t fix what isn’t broken, and this Spanish side looks close to unbreakable.
It’s hard to picture players like Dean Huijsen or Gonzalo Garcia getting a look from the national team set-up any time soon. Thiago Pitarch has caught the eye at youth level, but he has a long way to go before Luis de la Fuente would consider him. Chema Andres, formerly of Castilla, doesn’t have an obvious route in either.
Even in the transfer market, Real Madrid have largely looked beyond Spain’s borders — three of their four signings this season have been non-Spanish. It’s a curious position for the club that represented Spain at the very founding of FIFA. Madrid’s status as a global institution means its success no longer hinges only on Spanish talent, but for the country’s biggest club, the distance from its own national team is somewhat interesting at least.
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