Leeds United trio Diego Llorente, Rodrigo Moreno and Pascal Struijk have all missed out on World Cup call-ups for Spain and Netherlands respectively. All three had been named in their nations' provisional squads but all three have unfortunately missed out on the final cut.
There had been real hope of Llorente making Luis Enrique's squad for the tournament in Qatar having featured fairly regularly in recent international windows. However, the return of Aymeric Laporte to fitness has seen him fall down the pecking order, with Eric Garcia, Pau Torres and Hugo Guillamon all chosen ahead of him.
He has also recently fallen out of favour at Elland Road, starting just one of the last seven Premier League matches. Rodrigo, meanwhile, was always more of an outside bet to make the squad despite Spain's lack of attacking options.
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The 31-year-old has not played for his country in 12 months and his impressive goal scoring return of seven in 12 matches has not been enough to change Enrique's mind. Struijk, too, was also seen as being an unlikely call-up to the Netherland squad, given the options Louis van Gaal has at his disposal at centre back.
Virgil van Dijk, Nathan Ake, Matthijs de Ligt, Stefan de Vrij and Jurrien Timber have all been selected ahead of him, with impressive Newcastle United star Sven Botman also missing out. Struijk is yet to be capped at international level but his inclusion in each of the last two provisional squads bodes well for the future.
With confirmation having now arrived for both Spain and Netherlands, that means Leeds will have just three players at the World Cup. Rasmus Kristensen is set to represent Denmark, while Tyler Adams and Brenden Aaronson have both been selected for the United States.
Robin Koch and Mateusz Klich also faced disappointment yesterday after missing out on the Germany and Poland squads respectively.
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