Final Squad Announced to face Turkey in Madrid

This Saturday, the 28th of March La Furia Roja will be hosting Turkey in the Santiago Bernabeú for our 5th World Cup qualifying matchup.

Turkey will be no pushovers as they proved their worth in the Euro 2008 where they had a solid run, eventually losing to finalists Germany. They defeated teams along the way such as European powerhouses Croatia and the Czech Republic. This by far will be our biggest test yet but no doubt we will be looking to win at home and keep our undefeated streak alive.

Late last week, Vicente del Bosque announced the squad that was going to travel to Madrid to take on Turkey this coming weekend. It looked something like this:

Goalkeepers: Casillas, Reina, Diego Lopez

Defenders: Arbeloa, Sergio Ramos, Albiol, Marchena, Juanito, Capdevila, Pique

Midfielders: Iniesta, Silva, Xavi, Xabi Alonso, Riera, Senna, Cazorla, Busquets.

Forwards: Torres, Villa, Llorente, Guiza.

Since the announcement though, Andrés Iniesta was injured last weekend in Barça’s 6-0 thrashing of Málaga and as a result has withdrawn himself from the squad. Today it was announced that Valencia youth sensation Juan Mata has been called up to the squad in place of the injured Iniesta and is more than excited about it. Mata has been called up once before but was left on the bench for the whole match.

Personally I’m excited about this and if you’ve ever ready any of my previous posts you would know that I’m a huge fan of Mata. I think I would have liked to see Jesús Navas of Sevilla be called up instead seeing as he’s a natural right winger as opposed to Mata who’s more of a forward but anyhow, this does definitely say a lot about the promising youth we have coming through the ranks.

Once again, del Bosque has chosen Dani Güiza over Raúl, further suggesting that the Madrid legend’s international career has come to an end. There was much speculation that he would get the call up ahead of Güiza who has struggled to find his best form for Fenerbahçe this year but it was not to be.

Other News
Valencia coach Unai Emery has announced his displeasure with the calling up of David Villa and David Silva to the squad because they are both currently “unfit” and did not play against Racing Santander on the weekend but look likely to suit up for the national squad and play this coming weekend in Madrid.

This is probably going to be our hardest qualifying match by miles so if we can win this I have no doubts that we will top the group and easily qualify for South Africa 2010. I’ll have a proper preview up on Friday and a recap to follow on Saturday.

¡¡Qué Viva España!!