David De Gea reportedly received a bizarre text message from the Spanish football federation congratulating him on his international retirement, despite the fact he hasn’t retired.
De Gea missed out on Spain’s 26-man squad for the World Cup in Qatar, with Luis Enrique choosing Brighton’s Robert Sanchez, Brentford’s David Raya and Athletic Bilbao goalkeeper Unai Simon.
The 32-year-old has likely missed out on his last chance at appearing at a World Cup. Since Luis Enrique took over in 2019, it has been often Simon preferred in goal ,with the Manchester United goalkeeper out of favour under the former Barcelona manager.
Once the best goalkeeper in the world, David De Gea's international future looks bleak.
David De Gea Receives Retirement Message
While David De Gea has failed to add to his 45 caps for Spain, it appears as though the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation Luis Rubiales has added further misery to De Gea.
According to Spanish reporter Jose Alvarez, De Gea was shocked by the message he had received from Rubiales, who believed he retired from international football.
"De Gea has been a bit of a strange subject. Suddenly he disappeared from the call ups a few months ago and Luis Enrique did call David to tell him he was not going to count on him.
A few days later David receives a message from Rubiales, president of the Federation, who says: 'David, I am glad that you have finally made the decision you have been thinking about, I have already been told that you are leaving the national team
To this, David replies: 'Sorry? There is no renunciation of anything, who has told you that I renounce anything? The coach has told me that he is not going to count on me, but I have never renounced the national team, nor do I intend to do so, that is if I am called up'.
He was a bit surprised by the communication between Luis Enrique and Rubiales and the message that arrived from Rubiales afterwards. He was a bit surprised that Rubiales sent him the message saying that he was going to resign from the national team or that he had made the decision after thinking about it, never mind congratulations for taking the decision."
A messy situation for Spain and De Gea, who can feel hard done by this treatment. While he’s not the player he once was, someone with his legacy surely deserves better treatment from his national team.
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