Leeds United defender Diego Llorente has been named in the Spain squad for upcoming friendly matches against Albania and Iceland later this month. Llorente has become the fourth member of the Whites squad to be called up to their respective country with the last international break of the season to follow after this weekend’s matches.
Raphinha, Stuart Dallas and Daniel James have all already been handed call ups to Brazil, Northern Ireland and Wales respectively, with the latter set to face a huge World Cup play-off semi-final clash with Austria. Llorente’s Spain, though, have already secured their passage to the competition at the end of the year, and are now set to step up their preparations for the tournament with their first matches since qualification was confirmed.
The 28-year-old will be competing with a number of top-class centre backs for a place in Luis Enrique’s first XI, with Aymeric Laporte, Pau Torres and Eric Garcia the other options at his disposal. Despite being named in the squad for last summer’s EUROs, Llorente has not featured for Spain since the 0-0 draw with Portugal 11 months ago.
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He has, though, been a regular for Leeds this season with 23 appearances under his belt and will now be hoping he adds to the eight caps he has won for Spain so far in his career. But Llorente has not quite hit the same level of form he attained during the second half of last season, where he helped transform a leaky Leeds defence after overcoming his injury problems.
