Squad Announced for Upcoming Confederations Cup

All us Spanish fans were waiting eagerly in anticipation as to who Vicente del Bosque was going to name to the squad which would travel to South Africa to play in the Confederations Cup this summer. We have had many injury worries over the past few months including the likes of Santi Cazorla, Marcos Senna, Iniesta and Carles Puyol just to name a few.

While Villarreal hard-man Marcos Senna is out indefinitely, his teammate Santi Cazorla gets the call up to the squad despite only having played his first game upon his return from injury this past weekend. Carles Puyol, Gerard Piqué, Andrés Iniesta and David Silva who all are currently suffering with minor injuries were also called up the squad in hopes that they will completely recover by the time our first match against New Zealand which takes place on June 14th.

There is 5 changes to the squad from the team that travelled to and conquered Austria/Switzerland last summer. Sevilla duo Andrés Palop and Fernando Navarro are out as well as Juanito, Sergio Garcia, Marcos Senna and Ruben de la Red. Stepping in are Diego Lopez, Sergi Busquets, Gerard Piqué, Juan Mata, Albert Riera and Athletic Bilbao hitman Fernando Llorente.

The full squad looks like this:
Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Pepe Reina (Liverpool), Diego Lopez (Villarreal).

Defenders: Raúl Albiol (Valencia), Álvaro Arbeloa (Liverpool), Joan Capdevila (Villarreal), Carlos Marchena (Valencia), Gerard Piqué (Barcelona), Carles Puyol (Barcelona), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid).

Midfielders: Xabi Alonso (Liverpool), Sergi Busquets (Barcelona), Santi Cazorla (Villarreal), Cesc Fàbregas (Arsenal), Xavi (Barcelona), Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona), David Silva (Valencia), Juan Mata (Valencia), Albert Riera (Liverpool).

Forwards: David Villa (Valencia), Daniel Güiza (Fenerbahce), Fernando Torres (Liverpool), Fernando Llorente (Athletic Bilbao).

Before we travel to South Africa we travel head over to Asia to take on Azerbaijan in a friendly on June 6th. This match will most likely be easy enough to consider it a warm-up for what is to come in the Confederations Cup.

Other News:
Today the FIFA World Rankings were released and obviously, we top them once again. We’ve had quite the glorious year ever since winning the European Championships back in the summer of 2008 and with our undefeated record in World Cup qualifying thus far, there’s no signs of us slowing down.

Our group in the Confederations Cup is rather weak consisting of New Zealand, Iraq and South Africa but the real test will occur as we progress to face either Brasil or Italy, the two most successful teams of all time. Regardless of who we encounter, if we continue playing like we have over the past several months, I have no doubt that we can clean up in this tournament. While Italy and Brasil have been very successful in past tournaments they have both had their little struggles in qualifying thus far.

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¡¡Qué viva España!!