Manchester United sold Alejandro Garnacho to Chelsea for £40million during last summer’s transfer window, and the Argentina international has struggled ever since
Alejandro Garnacho’s World Cup dreams are in tatters after being cut from their preliminary squad list of players.
Garnacho, 21, last featured for the reigning world champions 18 months ago during their qualification campaign. The former Manchester United winger was once a regular in national team squads after debuting in the summer of 2023.
He then went to the following year’s Copa America, which Argentina won, making one appearance. Garnacho has played just twice since then, and three times in total during World Cup qualifying, but will not add to his eight caps for the senior team this summer.
His former United team-mate Lisandro Martinez does make the cut. Alexis Mac Allister, Cristian Romero, Emiliano Martinez and Enzo Fernandez are the other Premier League players included.
Garnacho is the most-capped forward not to make it from the preliminary list. Franco Mastantuono, who has half as many caps but all of them since Garnacho’s last call-up, is another notable absentee after his debut season at Real Madrid.
Claudio Echeverri, who spent the season on loan at Girona from Manchester City, will also not be making his senior debut this summer despite being on the preliminary squad. Emiliano Buendia, Gianluca Prestianni, Mateo Pellegrino, Matias Soule, Santiago Castro and Tomas Aranda were the other forwards to miss out.
Half of those to feature played for Garnacho’s former club, Atletico Madrid, last season, as Giuliano Simeone, Nicolas Gonzalez, Julian Alvarez and Thiago Almada all make the cut. Lionel Messi will lead them into his sixth World Cup alongside Palmeiras striker Jose Manuel Lopez, Lautaro Martinez of Inter and former Real Madrid academy graduate Nicolas Paz, who now plays for Como.
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Garnacho will have hoped a move to Chelsea would have helped earn a spot in this summer’s squad. He spoke in December about the reasons behind his switch.
The winger said: “Sometimes in life you have to change things to take a step forward or improve as a player. I think it was the right moment and the right club, so it was an easy decision.
“I came here to play my football and show people the player I am. The most important thing is confidence.”
Garnacho made 43 appearances across all competitions for Chelsea, scoring eight goals and assisting another four. However, he was in the starting line-up for barely half of those outings (22) and most of his strikes came in domestic cup competitions, scoring four times across their ties against Cardiff City, Port Vale and Wrexham.
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