Luis Enrique has joked that he is under pressure to pick Ferran Torres for Spain at the World Cup - because the Barcelona star is dating his daughter.
Enrique is the man in charge of leading Spain in Qatar, with their campaign getting underway against Costa Rica on Wednesday. The 2010 champions have a star-studded squad more than capable of getting out of Group E, which also contains Germany and Japan, but Enrique has an unusual selection headache to deal with.
Former Manchester City forward Torres has been dating Enrique’s 22-year-old daughter, Sira Martinez, since last year. His £46.3million transfer from City to Barcelona in January saw Torres move to the same city as Martinez, who is a showjumper, and complicate his relationship with the national team’s manager.
Enrique was asked in a press conference to pick a player in his squad who is the extension of himself on the pitch, if predecessor Vicente del Bosque’s was Sergio Busquets. With a smile on his face, he replied: "That’s very easy: it’s Mr Ferran Torres. Otherwise, my daughter will come after me and chop off my head!"
Torres was put up by Spain for a following press conference and responded to Enrique’s joke. "I don’t take it as added pressure, we know that the coach is a joker and he simply made a joke while he was live," he said.
"I think the coach and I, we know how to differentiate between when it’s family and when we are manager and player. I think we have to get on with it in a natural way, just that and we're getting along fine."
Torres made his relationship with Martinez public back in January after celebrating her winning performance in a horse-riding competition with an Instagram post. She is Enrique’s eldest daughter and, like Torres, lives in Barcelona.
Despite making light of the situation publicly, Torres reacted differently when the topic was brought up in a different setting.
The Barca forward was on a Twitch stream with former City striker Sergio Aguero over the weekend and left the platform when Aguero asked about his relationship. Aguero reacted by joking: “Ferran left. I told him he is s****ing Luis’ girl.”
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Torres will be competing for a place in Enrique’s starting line-up against the likes of Pablo Sarabia, Yeremy Pino, Alvaro Morata, Marco Asensio, Nico Williams, Ansu Fati and Dani Olmo.
Spain begin their campaign against Costa Rica in the Al Thumama Stadium at 4pm UK time on Wednesday before further Group E clashes with Germany (Sunday, November 27) and Japan (Thursday, December 1). Enrique is hoping to improve Spain’s poor performance at the 2018 World Cup, when they were knocked out in the last-16 on penalties by hosts Russia.
