According to media reports, Real Madrid striker Carlos Espi is set to battle with a familiar name for a place in the squad of FIFA World Cup winners, Spain.
Earlier on this summer, Real Madrid completed the signing of striker Carlos Espi from Levante, who had won La Liga U23 Player of the Year last season, after scoring 11 goals in just 13 starts in the league.
It was the absolute dream start to life at Los Blancos for him last weekend, showing great striker instincts to pounce on a loose ball in the box and fire home a last minute winner to give Jose Mourinho's side all three points in their opening game away to RCD Espanyol.
Although it is unlikely that he will play hugely significant minutes this season - barring any injuries in the forward line - there is still a hope and anticipation within the fanbase that he will play a big part this season, in a similar way to Joselu during the 23/24 season.
Some have even tipped Espi for a maiden Spain national team call up, and well, it looks like he may actually be on the periphery of exactly that.
Indeed so, as it is being reported by Spanish media outlet, Diario AS (via MadridXtra) that he will be competing with a familiar name in former Real Madrid striker Gonzalo Garcia, for a place as one of the deputy strikers in the squad.
Essentially, it was Espi who replaced Garcia this summer, after he joined Alvaro Arbeloa at Premier League side Fulham. You may have seen that he made his debut for the club last night, scoring in a 3-2 defeat to Xabi Alonso's Chelsea in a West London derby, which you can read all about here.
What is also interesting is that Spain boss, Luis de la Fuente, recently confirmed (via MadridXtra) that Espi was close to going to the FIFA World Cup: "Carlos Espi was on the preliminary World Cup list. He is an interesting player with great potential, and with the national team, those who should be there are present. We are closely following him."
Very interesting. We also know that Garcia was close to the World Cup too, having been part of a pre tournament training camp, and making his senior debut in a warm up friendly against Iraq at the start of June.
So, both players do indeed seem pretty close. Spain's first game as World Champions is against England in the UEFA Nations League at the end of September, the first game of four in the extended international break, where they will also play Croatia (x2), and Czechia. It will be interesting to see if either or maybe even both players are called up.
