Spain named a 26-strong World Cup squad in Madrid on Monday and, for the first time in the nation's 17 tournament appearances since 1934, no Real Madrid player was included — a decision that leaves 21-year-old Dean Huijsen, the closest Madrid contender, watching from the sidelines.
Huijsen is the reason many people are searching Spain's list today: the defender, who joined Real Madrid for £50million last summer and looked to have secured a Spain starting spot 12 months earlier while still at Bournemouth, had been widely regarded as the club’s leading candidate for selection.
The absence of any Real Madrid names is the clearest proof that this selection breaks a long national pattern. Across seven decades and 17 World Cup participations, Spain has always carried at least one player from its most decorated club; that streak ended with Monday’s 26-man list. The raw number — 26 players, zero from Real Madrid — is the simplest measure of how radical this pick is.
That radicalism cuts two ways. Spain’s coach, Luis de la Fuente, left out several obvious Madrid figures: 34-year-old Dani Carvajal, who was vice-captain when Spain won the European Championship in Germany in 2024, did not even make de la Fuente’s 55-strong provisional squad. Younger Real Madrid recruits also missed the cut. Alvaro Carreras, who joined Madrid from Benfica in July for €50million, was overlooked along with Huijsen.
De la Fuente instead handed spots to other young defenders — Barcelona’s Pau Cubarsi and Atletico Madrid’s Marc Pubill were chosen ahead of Huijsen — a selection that underlines the coach’s specific preference for certain profiles over the new arrivals at Real Madrid. That choice is especially striking because a younger Spanish core around Huijsen, Carreras and Gonzalo Garcia had been discussed in pre-season; the list announced on Monday does not reflect that narrative.
Evidence that coaches have judged careers differently in recent seasons piles up in the surrounding names. Huijsen’s near-miss is more acute because a year ago he appeared to have locked a starting role while still at Bournemouth. By contrast, Fran Garcia, who won two caps under de la Fuente in October 2023, remains on the national radar, and emerging figures like Gonzalo Garcia — who has six goals in seven caps for Spain’s under-21s — will be given a short training window: Gonzalo Garcia is due to join the senior squad as a supplementary player ahead of the June 4 warm-up friendly against Iraq.
The decision exposes a clear friction point: Real Madrid supplied few realistic alternatives in the coach’s assessment, yet two of the club’s most talked-about youngsters were widely assumed to be part of Spain’s next generation. Huijsen and Carreras had been spoken of as staples of a fresh defensive core, but neither appears in the squad de la Fuente announced in Madrid. The selection therefore severs a running storyline about Madrid’s youth making the jump to Spain’s senior team.
Practical consequences are immediate. For Huijsen, the missed call-up is both a reputational check and a narrow deadline — the coming weeks of club football and international friendlies will determine whether he forces reconsideration before major tournament football resumes. For Real Madrid, the omission is a reputational shock: the club’s status as a near-automatic supplier to Spain at World Cups has been interrupted.
The single most consequential unanswered question now is simple and stark: why did Luis de la Fuente prefer Pau Cubarsi and Marc Pubill to Dean Huijsen and Alvaro Carreras? Spain’s roster gives no full explanation, and that choice — between two promising Real Madrid recruits and two players from rival clubs — will shape debates about selection criteria, youth progression and how national managers value club pedigree versus current fit.
