The figure of Iago Aspas (Moaña, 1987) is one of the most followed these days in the Ciudad del Fútbol of the RFEF. No one looks older on his DNI but no one beats him in illusion either. Almost four years after his last call-up with Spain, Luis de la Fuente has given him a second chance, perhaps the last, to make his mark with the Spanish team.
“I would have liked to return to the national team sooner but there was a coach who preferred others and I had to wait. Now there is a change of cycle and I face it with great enthusiasm”, he congratulated himself this Thursday in Las Rozas.
Aspas disappeared from the red squad since June 2019. His last game was against the Faroe Islands, on the way to Euro 2020. “I have beautiful memories of that day, I gave an assist and we won 1-4. We played in a synthetic field and I had never been to the Faroe Islands,” he joked with a smile.
The scorer had been a fixture in the first stage for Luis Enrique, a starter in four of the five games he played, although he failed to score. Later, with the replacement of Robert Moreno, he was never called up again, not even when Luis Enrique returned to the bench. An absence, his, habitual in the list of top Spanish scorers year after year, which has always generated debate. “The coach has brought the three top Spanish scorers this time, so if there is no goal, nothing can be said to him,” he remarked.
The international career of the prince of the Bateas includes 18 games and six goals, the last in the 2018 World Cup in Russia against Morocco. Four years later, also against Morocco, Aspas had to watch Spain’s elimination in Qatar on television. “I speak as a future coach, with Luis Enrique we had a very marked game plan but we did not have plan B, when a game got stuck there were no other records to try to turn the situation around,” he lamented, throwing a small dart at the Asturian .
Aspas has gone through difficult times during these last years of absence as an international, always excited about his return. “When the time came to give the list and I saw that he was not having a bad time, I saw that he was doing things well at Celta,” he recalled.
Aspas’s career is far from the usual for an elite footballer, a complicated path of his that he claimed to justify his intact illusion of defending the colors of Spain a few months after his 36th birthday. “I played three years in Second B, another three in Second and I didn’t debut in First until I was 25 years old, for me being here is a prize and I’m not going to miss the opportunity,” he said.
