Yamal and Williams should be fit for Spain's opener, says De la Fuente
Spain head into the World Cup without the injury cloud that had been hanging over their two best wide players. Luis de la Fuente said on Wednesday that Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams should be ready for the opener against Cape Verde on June 15, even if both are held back from the warm-up against Iraq first.
The pair closed out the club season nursing hamstring trouble, which is why their fitness had become the main talking point around the squad. The coach sounded relaxed about it. "That timeline indicates they'll be ready by the 15th," de la Fuente said, adding that if recovery kept going the way it had been, the two could even start the opener in Atlanta.
Easing the wingers back
The plan is to keep Yamal and Williams out of the Iraq friendly rather than chance a relapse for minutes that count for nothing. It is the sensible call. Yamal, still only 18, is the player Spain are built around going forward, and Williams gives them a different kind of threat down the left. Losing either before a ball is kicked would change how de la Fuente sets the team up.
Both have been doing controlled work as they build back, and the staff clearly feel the worst is behind them. De la Fuente has stopped short of promising they will start, which is fair given hamstrings rarely run to a neat schedule, but the tone was that of a coach who expects to have his first-choice attack available when it matters.
A squad with no Real Madrid players
The louder story when the 26 was named was who missed out. For the first time at a World Cup, Spain travel without a single Real Madrid player. Dani Carvajal and Dean Huijsen both failed to make the cut, and neither even featured on the 55-man provisional list, while Atlético Madrid's Robin Le Normand was another notable name left at home.
Barcelona fill much of the gap. Eight of their players are in the squad, Yamal, Pedri and Gavi among them, which gives the side a distinctly Catalan spine. It is a striking shift for a national team that has leaned on Madrid players for most of its history, and a reminder of where the talent pipeline has moved in Spanish football over the past few years.
Among the favourites again
Spain arrive as one of the teams to beat. They were drawn in Group H alongside Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay, a section they will expect to come through, with the meeting against Marcelo Bielsa's Uruguay the obvious test on paper.
How far they go may still come down to the fitness of two players. A Spain side with Yamal and Williams flying is a different proposition to one nursing them through the group, and that is exactly why de la Fuente's update on Wednesday mattered more than anything that happens against Iraq.
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