Luis Enrique Martinez, national coach, finally explained his soccer criteria for not calling certain players whose repeated absences from the National Team are difficult to understand for a large part of soccer fans. Lucho focused on what he asks of the strikers to be called up, specifically referring to specific cases such as Juanmi, Borja Iglesias or Iago Aspas.
Luis Enrique talks about the type of player that suits him both for the winger and for the position of nine and the enormous defensive implication that he must have in the pressure:
There are type characteristics for all forwards in the squad, be they wingers or nine. In this concentration everyone can play nine or false nine. has to come to associatea generate superiorities. The rival is conditioned by our positioning and we can easily find the last line, with low balls. From there, there are clear conditions that all the strikers we call up have, since they are required in the national team and some in their clubs do not show them. If they fulfill them, they come back; if not, we look for another option. They have to be the first defender, they run like crazy when we don’t have the ball. We have the minimum 70%, so they must meet a series of movements without the ball and his attitude must be bestialare the early defenders clearly, without them the team would not have a high defensive level
For Luis Enrique, even above his goalscoring ability, knowing how to associate and defensive involvement prevail. Some parameters that, curiously, respond perfectly to the style of Iago Aspas. His case is especially bloody. The Celta striker has not been summoned for three years by a coach who comes to say that he does not take the ‘Prince of Bateas’ because does not defend -no one in their right mind could say that Aspas does not go down to associate and open spaces with his constant movements without the ball since it is one of his main characteristics-. So the argument that Lucho puts on the table for not having Aspas is defensive. Don’t press. doesn’t run enough. This is true?
You only have to watch a Celta game to know that it is completely false. Coudet’s men are one of the teams that put the most pressure on the rival field and Aspas is the key piece in that start of pressure from a team that plays with brutal intensity and a very high pace. At first glance, it can be seen that Luis Enrique’s justification for arguing Iago’s absence is a milonga. But not only the view leaves the Spanish coach on the ground, the data, the statistics portray him.
If we talk about association capacity and we compare Aspas with Luis Enrique’s two strikers today, Raúl de Tomás and Morata, the figures sing: Aspas finished last season with 1,237 passes (934 good), Raúl de Tomás made 720 passes (604 good) and Álvaro Morata gave 635 passes (481 good).
Let’s go with the defensive data. Aspas, which is the second attacker in the entire League who makes the most recoveries in the opposite field, has stolen this course a total of 113 ballsan average of 3.05 per match. The parakeet striker has recovered 67 (1.97 on average) and Álvaro Morata recovered 88 balls (2.51 per match). In kilometers traveled per match Iago Aspas exceeds Raúl de Tomás by almost a kilometer on average. The sky blue made an average of 9.7 kilometers per game for less than 9 kilometers on average of the nine parakeet.
Finally, the Asturian coach recalled that the players who went to the national team and did not meet their demands were no longer cited. Aspas has been capped 18 times -he has never played a full game-. he has accumulated 679 minutes with Spain in which you have marked 6 goals and has given 6 assists, participating in a goal value action every 56 minutes. Another lie from good Lucho.
Luis Enrique, who can summon whoever he wants since he is the one who decides, has taken a fake and totally unjustifiable cheap excuse to clarify the repeated absence of Zarra from Spanish football -this season he finished with 18 goals and 5 assists-. To tell a joke and take the staff for a fool, it is better to be silent.
The true justification for the absence of certain footballers with the national team is simple: the pride and the pigheadedness They weigh much more than football. And if not, tell the good guy Nacho who has to see Eric García’s soft from the sofa in his house being outdone by its peer day in and day out. If you say “I’m the coach and I summon whoever I want” you look much better, your nose doesn’t grow and you start to look like Pinocchio, Lucho.
