It’s that time. National teams are finally releasing squad lists for Euro 2020. Luis Enrique recently released the squad list for Spain, and there was one surprise omission. Sergio Ramos, the captain of the Spanish National Team, was nowhere to be found.
Enrique explained his decision by saying that Ramos hasn’t really been able to compete in the right conditions since January, and that it’s a decision that is the best for the group.
He mentioned that it wasn’t really the easiest decision to make.
It’s just that one thing that bothers me. If you remove Ramos from this Spain squad, the experience that it has decreases by so much. We know how important that is for competitions like this.
BREAKING: Sergio Ramos has been left out of Spain's squad for Euro 2020 ❌ pic.twitter.com/eGhokKKyDm
— GOAL (@goal) May 24, 2021
Sergio Ramos is the best centre-back that Spain has – why would you not call him up?
Sergio Ramos has won the Euros twice, and the World Cup once in a storied international career dating back to 2005.
He has been such an integral part of Spain’s system under all the managers that they’ve played, that it’s hard to imagine Spain in a tournament without him.
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The decision actually doesn’t make sense to me, to be honest. The defense loses so much quality without Ramos in it.
Now the options that they have are Aymeric Laporte, Diego Llorente, Pau Torres and Eric Garcia. None of them is above 25 years of age. None of them has played in a major international tournament. None of them has more than 10 international caps.
Let’s be honest, Ramos is still the best defender out of the bunch. Laporte still doesn’t start games regularly for Manchester City due to injuries/other players being considered over him. Diego Llorente is great but he’s not exactly world-class.
Eric Garcia is a good prospect and pretty talented, but at the moment, not much beyond that
Pau Torres is one of the best young centre-backs in the world, and many top clubs do want him, but as of right now, he just doesn’t have the experience of playing in those big games.
Why am I even explaining this? It’s Sergio Ramos we’re talking about!
Injuries and performances aside, it’s the team’s captain. You just don’t omit the captain of the team because he hasn’t played as much as you would’ve liked.
I’m pretty sure Ramos would’ve been recovered well in time for Euros, and would’ve had a few training sessions in with the rest of the squad. Maybe bench him for the first two games if he’s not in sync with the rest of the team? Enrique could’ve handled this in a much better way.
I think it’s a bad decision made by the manager and I hope it doesn’t affect the team or their performances. But, it might. The team lacks a leader as good as Ramos, and that might come back and haunt them.