Chelsea signed Alejandro Garnacho from Manchester United for £40million during last summer’s transfer window and the winger’s difficult debut season has just got worse
Alejandro Garnacho’s World Cup dreams are in ruins after being axed from Argentina’s preliminary squad. The former Manchester United player last turned out for the reigning world champions before signing for Chelsea last summer.
Garnacho, 21, was once a fixture in national team squads after making his debut in the summer of 2023. The winger went on to feature at the following year’s Copa America, making a single appearance.
He has featured just twice since then, and three times in total throughout World Cup qualifying. Garnacho, however, will not add to his eight caps for the senior side 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 to earn their place.
Garnacho is the most-capped forward from the preliminary list to miss out. Franco Mastantuono, who has half as many caps but all of them since Garnacho’s last call-up 18 months ago, is another notable absentee following his debut season at Real Madrid.
Emiliano Buendia will also be watching the tournament from home. That is despite an impressive season for Aston Villa that earned him a second senior cap in November, almost four years after his first.
Claudio Echeverri, Gianluca Prestianni, Mateo Pellegrino, Matias Soule, Santiago Castro and Tomas Aranda were the other forwards to fall short of selection. Half of those picked played for Garnacho’s former club, Atletico Madrid, last season, with Giuliano Simeone, Nicolas Gonzalez, Julian Alvarez and Thiago Almada all included.
Lionel Messi will lead Argentina into his sixth World Cup. Palmeiras forward Jose Manuel Lopez, Inter’s Lautaro Martinez and ex-Real Madrid academy product Nicolas Paz, who currently represents Como, complete their forward options.
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Garnacho will have been hoping a switch to Chelsea would have secured him a place in this summer’s squad. He discussed the reasoning behind his transfer in December.
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 featured 43 times across all competitions for Chelsea, netting eight goals and providing four assists. But in what has turned out to be a difficult first season, he was in the starting XI for barely half of those matches (22), and the majority of his goals came in domestic cup competitions, finding the net four times across their encounters with Cardiff City, Port Vale and Wrexham.
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