Manchester United's Diogo Dalot will start against Aston Villa in the League Cup on Thursday night and that is the last game he will play before the winter break for the World Cup commences.
Dalot playing in the European Championship for Portugal last summer was fortuitous. He was originally excluded from Fernando Santos' squad, but Manchester City's Joao Cancelo was forced to withdraw after testing positive for COVID and that opened the door for an unassuming Dalot, who featured from the bench against France and started against Belgium.
A few months after the tournament, Dalot was named in Portugal's squad for October's World Cup qualifiers and there was nothing fortuitous about that. Dalot had earned the right to play for his country and he admitted it felt 'unbelievable'.
