For the first time in 17 World Cup appearances, since 1934 for the Spanish national team, they have no Real Madrid players in the squad.
In the final list announced by Luis de la Fuente, there are 8 players in the squad of La Liga champions - Barcelona. The remaining group is scattered in domestic clubs such as Atletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Celta Vigo and Osasuna. With stars playing abroad, they belong to teams such as Arsenal, Manchester City, Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayer Leverkusen.
The most recent Real Madrid player to appear in the La Roja squad was center-back Dean Huijsen 12 months ago. It seemed that the former Bournemouth star would be guaranteed a spot, but in the end he was not called up. Two replacements for the 21-year-old star are Pau Cubarsi (Barcelona) and Marc Pubill (Atletico Madrid).
In the EURO 2024 campaign, Dani Carvajal of Real Madrid was chosen as vice-captain in the championship journey. Since then, he has no longer been called up to the national team, and has not even appeared in the preliminary list of 55 players selected to participate in the 2026 World Cup. Real Madrid also has a few other players who have been called up to the national team such as Fran Garcia (2 times), Raul Asencio who was called up to participate in the Nations League but has not yet played.
Gonzalo Garcia was very successful in the Spanish U21 team but was also not officially called up. He was only called up to the national team before the friendly match with Iraq on June 4 as a substitute. The other player, Alvaro Carreras, although very potential and having left many marks in the 2025-2026 season, was also sidelined.
Real Madrid being completely empty-handed for 2 consecutive seasons is a major reason leading to the fact that no Los Blancos players are highly rated. Not only the Spanish national team, other national teams such as France (Eduardo Camavinga) or England (Trent Alexander-Arnold) also underestimate some stars of the Bernabeu home team.
In the most recent and only World Cup championship in 2010, La Roja at that time was a collection of many famous stars wearing Barcelona shirts, who were popular with the Tiki-Taka style such as Xavi, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique, Andres Iniesta or Carles Puyol. However, the success of the team that year also marked the strong imprint of Real Madrid members such as Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos, Xabi Alonso or Alvaro Arbeloa.
Before the 2026 World Cup, every tournament had at least 1 Real Madrid player in the Spanish national team squad. At the 1950 festival held in Brazil, the fewest number of Real Madrid players (1) was the case of Luis Molowny.
The trend of decreasing the number of Real Madrid players in the Spanish squad has been clearly felt in recent years. At the 2018 World Cup, 6 Los Blancos players were called up. However, this number is only 2 at the 2022 World Cup (Dani Carvajal and Marco Asensio). Interspersed between these two tournaments, at EURO 2020 (held in 2021), the Spanish squad also had no Real Madrid players.
Although this prospect was predicted in advance, until Luis de la Fuente announced the official list, many people were still surprised that no Real Madrid player would participate in the World Cup in the La Roja squad.
I don't care much which club they are playing for. I have no prejudice against their locality or club. All I want is for the players to feel great pride in wearing this jersey" - De la Fuente shared about the squad list for the World Cup.
On Real Madrid's side, Enrique Riquelme - a 37-year-old businessman running for club president feels this list is not good. He called for support to sit in the power chair at the Bernabeu to replace Florentino Perez, he will do everything to help Los Blancos players return to the national team more often.
