Ruben Castro's age (31) is definitely one of the reasons he wasn't even called up, compared to Negredo's 26. I still would have called up Soldado versus Negredo and Torres should have never been called up to start with.
This is just one tournament, Rubén Castro shouldn't go anywhere near the Spain team but, like I said earlier, if the only other option is Negredo then Rubén Castro any day. If Castro was in good form the whole season, then surely he can retain that form for one more month ? I mean are we crazy or something ? I would take Villa at 40% over Negredo at 100% without even a moment of consideration.
It won't be that different. Llorente is used to the style of play and is quite good at it I think. Bilbao played much more of a possession game this season and Llorente did very well. Torres, on the other hand, has not played in that type of system, well, maybe ever (except for when he gets called up for the NT and we have all seen the results there).
Here are how the Spanish forwards have faired throughout 2011-2012 (does not include penalties): Llorente: 28 goals Soldado: 25 goals Adrián: 23 goals Raúl: 21 goals Rubén Castro: 16 goals Callejón: 15 goals Michu: 15 goals Negredo: 13 goals Torres: 12 goals Tello: 12 goals Two places are already taken by default by Llorente and Torres. Here is why: Llorente is the only indisputable Spain striker, he is on his own the ultimate plan B and offers something completely new to the team that no other player can while Torres is now regaining his form and also has a certain amount of class that, apart from Villa, no other Spain striker can come close to emulate (the goals against Barcelona and Manchester United are a testament to that). That means that there's space for one more striker. Out of the available forwards, there are three who have scored over 20 goals and another three who have scored 15 plus. The striker Del Bosque decided to settle for is Negredo who has only scored 13 goals and has also missed loads of penalties this season meaning we can't even take advantage of him in a penalty shoot out. Sorry, I just can't get over it.
Do you by any chance have the minutes played? As much as I am not happy with Negredo going, I think he scored the 13 goals in half the time Llorente did.
Llorente had 29 goals in 53 appearances, not sure about the minutes. Negredo 14 goals in 36 appearances. Again, not sure of actual minutes played. And for a last reference point, Torres had 11 goals in 49 appearances. Edit: Just to add some more stats, Soldado 27 goals in 51 apps
I don't but if you type into google "[name of player] espn" you will see all of the statistics. Another point to make, a lot of people complain about Pepe Reina, the truth is, the guy is called up because he's the funny man who everyone loves and brings the team together. His influence on the team is very, very important. If we base things on skill alone, I like De Gea, Andrés Fernández, Diego López, Roberto Jiménez and even Guaita more than him. But the fact of the matter is that he is the third choice goalkeeper, both Casillas and Valdés will have to be simultaneously injured/suspended for him to play and if we seriously reach that situation where we have to use him we simply have to accept that it's not Spain's year.
Meaning that Negredo not only has the least goals but also has the hands down worst goals to games ratio. Why are we comparing Negredo's goal record to Llorente or Soldado anyway? he's nowhere near their level, we should be comparing him to Callejón, Michu and Rubén Castro.
I've read them and I think you are way hopeful in thinking Torres will recover his class with Spain (only class he had with the NT was that goal versus Germany) If this was any other player based on his last 3 seasons, they would have never sniffed the national team.
I've been following Spain for awhile now, and I'm pretty upset Soldado was left out. I really think we needed a new player up top to keep things fresh. Torres, probably won't do anything unless we make it to the final. I think we are really going to be relying on Silva for goals in this tournament like we relied on Villa.
Relying on Torres is a nightmare, true, and he probably won't deliver, but I find a lot more comfort relying on Torres than having to rely on f*****g Negredo. Negredo...
I don't know why you make it about goal count when at the same time you dismiss that Torres looks worse than any other possiblity including Negredo in that sense, and he 'deserves' to go despite of it. I'd rather rely on Negredo than Torres to be honest, it would be practically impossible for him to do worse.
Because Torres has proven his worth in big games and has already achieved big things, meaning that if he starts demonstrating good form again, he's worth calling up. What has Negredo ever achieved ? One good season at Almería ?
I didn't know you can say somebody has good form by just 1 game. I see you mentioned the Barça game as an example as well of his good form, though I doubt our opponents will play with 10 men on our side of the field to let him be able score. Even that was barely, as he still got caught up by an opponent player despite his 'speed'... which apparantly has left his body. Not that this matters as Torres has never been great for the national team, not even when he actually had good form with his club as opposed to now. As mentioned above, he scored in the 2008 final. The problem is that we need to reach the final first before he would be able to score in it as he has been inconsequential in any other game for us, and it's 2012 and he isn't even as good as he was then to boot. Again, Negredo would be hard pressed to do worse than Torres in the national team.
Don't get me wrong I agree that for Spain, Torres has always been useless. But the conversation is Torres vs Negredo... I watched the Serbia match yesterday thinking "Ok, Del Bosque must be seriously considering Soldado or Adrián... Maybe both but I doubt he will pick Soldado with Torres and Llorente already being indisputable... " Then Adrián came on, played amazing and I thought "that's it, Adrián is going Euros, Soldado has been poor recently and was invisible, Negredo was crap as usual and only got called up 'cause Llorente was ineligible" And then the one guy I thought didn't even have an outsiders chance of being called up makes the team. Still can't get over this, it's even worse than Sergio García being called up for Euro 2008 which wasn't even that bad considering Spain didn't have half the depth that it does now.
It's not as if every opponent has 23 on-form world beaters in their squad. The attacker choices were always gonna be debatable, as Spain has a lot of good attackers but very few obvious choice five star attackers, especially with Villa injured. Good chance for Llorente or Torres to make a stand, and with our ridiculously good quality midfield, they're gonna make it.
One big thing for Negredo and against Soldado is that when you look at the spring phase of the season, Negredo played better and scored nicely, while Soldado was far from what he was in the autumn. Negredo is maybe worse than Soldado, but he surely timed his good football performances better than Soldado considering the Euros.
Del Bosque is a joke. The message he's sending is that if you play well in a friendly, an ex-footballer like Torres gets called up. If you score three in an earlier friendly, Negredo gets called up.
It seems like you're trying to show me those videos as if I didn't watch both of those matches ? if we're going to use video footage as material to justify Negredo's inclusion, then there's way more video footage of Torres which shows off more than anything Negredo does in those videos. And it's not even a case of Negredo being bad, it's a case of there being about 8 Spanish forwards who are better.
I am not trying justify anything. I just figure watching him in the NT jersey will make you bang your head against the wall.
cfb makes good points. It appears we all agree that Negredo and Torres should have not been included. I would have went with Adrián and Soldado or maybe even Raul. I dont really care about Negredo.. I am more worried that Torres will start every single game. Sadly for us this time around, we dont have Villa to bail us out.