Spain: Casillas, Carvajal, Ramos, Alonso.

Brazil: Marcelo.

Germany: Khedira.

Portugal: Pepe, Coentrao, Ronaldo.

Croatia: Modric.

Argentina: Di Maria.

France: Varane, Benzema.

Was it expected for him not to make the squad? I mean there are more and more reports that Arbeloa and Casillas have issues with one another but not sure how much truth that holds.

This happened recently:

I don't think small arguments would have jeopardised his place in the WC squad.

He should have got called up due to his experience imo. Azpiliceuta's mainly been playing LB every time I've seen him play and Carvajal's inexperienced.

meh....arbeloa was out for large chunks of the season, carvajal is still wet behind the ears and inexperienced but plays with a lot of grit. i wasn't surprised by his omission. i don't think the little issues with casillas had anything to do with it, although i have to say arbeloa has spoken to the media too much about a whole lot of crap, controversial issues that the players have managed to avoid talking about or that the players just gloss over briefly, arbeloa has spoken about at length e.g. casillas, diego lopez, mourinho, the team's state last season....maybe bosque was scared arbeloa would go to the world cup and say something like "diego lopez deserves to be here" (lmao, okay just joking).....nah but i think it was a professional decision, arbe was out for large chunks of this season, and even when he was fit, his position in spain always had a question mark......that said, i'm happy for the madrid guys, but i hope spain don't win; if atleti are to win the league, i'd be happy about the barcelona core not holding any silverware at all, especially not the world cup

Carvajal didn't make the final 23 man squad unfortunately.

joke

Based on merit Carvajal should have been there but let's face it, spains problem was never the backline. They won the WC with Arbeloa as their starting RB. Had he been a CF I can guarantee you he would've been called. There are alot of RBs and you can't call up a player who has never played for the spanish senior team for a wc unless injuries force you to. I kind of had a gist he wouldn't be called up. But it's funny nonetheless, VDB had no problems calling up Montoya last season when Carvajal was a starter for Leverkusen and Montoya a bit part player at Barca and now calls up Deulofeu who was a bench player for Everton over Callejon who took the Serie A by storm. It really gets you wondering where his "loyalties" lie

Del Bosque you bleep.

carvajal would have done much better than azpile...

casillas made some horrendous mistakes

but the reason spain conceded so much in the end was because of del bosque's ridiculous decision to take off Xabi Alonso.

Alonso is the gell between the midfield and defense. he controls the pace, the defensive line.

xavi and busquets were so much crap

koke should start instead of xavi

silva was poor, pedro should start.

I agree with you. thought pedro added some much needed energy to that team. They missed Alonso in the second half bkitz but vdb tries to make spain look as barca (tised) as possible and it backfires because their players are finished or just plain crap

Benzema

Benzema did well, second goal was a good finish.

Di Maria, Modric, Alonso and Varane did ok, Casillas and Ramos were poor. Marcelo unfortunate to score an own goal.

Ronaldo, Coentrao, Pepe and Khedira all play tomorrow.

Benzema got Man of the Match.

Spoiler:

Ronaldo was meh.
Pepe sent off
Coentrao? not sure

RealGunner wrote:Ronaldo was meh.
Pepe sent off
Coentrao? not sure

Coentrao crashed into Nani during their arguably best scoring chance   CR didn't play well, but in his defense, he was starved for service and his whole team struggled to get the ball out of their own half.

The World Cup is where the best stand out, so no surprise The Big Benz is excelling

More rest for our spanish players as they crash out. Portugal play USA without Ronaldo, Pepe or Coentrao not too confident they will win and they are out if they lose

Modric had a very good game last night

Denis Cheryshev is training with the Russian national team but due to injury Cappello didn't select him in the 23 man squad. Good experience for him before coming back

The only Madrid players left now are Benzema, Khedira DiMaria, Varane and Marcelo. All of Khedira, Marcelo and Varane need these games to their fittness up to scratch after lengthy periods out. Benz and DiMaria are going to be dead tired by the end of this though after such a long season

Glad Ronaldo and Modric are out because both need the rest for different reasons.

agree with hala, glad cron and modric are out, especially the fact that cristiano had some niggles before the tournament and playing deep into it would have only exacerbated issues at a time when we need all our players fit since we'll be playing these irrelevant cup games (uefa super cup, spanish super cup and world club cup: i could care less about these games, a complete waste of time and energy imo, the world club or int'l club/toyota cup had some prestige back in the day, but these days i'm of the opinion that all these are just over-hyped friendlies).....that said, cristiano and a lot of our madrid players really flopped in this world cup....i hope carlo can get them fully motivated for the season ahead

Unfortunately I am also glad to see Ronaldo leave the World Cup.  I was hoping for the best for him to shut up all the haters and honestly I am trying to avoid reading all the comments in both the general discussion and World Cup discussion sections because now all the Ronaldo haters are out in full force.  The guy wins a CL, CDR, and Balon D'or this year and people will still find a reason to call him awful.  It was a long season for him and most of our players.  Watching those Portugal games had me cringing because the squad was god awful, and with his injury you knew he couldn't do much.  You could tell he was in pain, and seeing him so slow in both dribbling and ball chasing, you could easily see it could have possibly turned to something very serious.  As far as Spanish team members, they will bounce back.  I was kind of bummed when VDB didn't pick Danny.  Let's just hope our squad make it back home safely and uninjured.

Only 3 Madrid players left in the WC and a bunch of former Madrid players

DiMaria looks likely to be missing the rest of the world cup so Argentina can go south now, don't care if they lose, sorry Pipa. None of the four teams have actually looked convincing so I think this wc will be won by the best defense (not on paper).

Hope DiMaria makes it though, of all the teams left Argentina is the most likeable of them all and he is essential if they want to win. Messi can obviously try and work some magic but if they contain him there will be noone that can step up