The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) reportedly congratulated Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea on his international retirement, despite the shot-stopper actually never having announced he his quitting the national team.
Despite some impressive performances under new boss Erik ten Hag, the 32-year-old was surprisingly left out of Spain's 55-man provisional squad towards the end of October.
This ensured that the former Atletico Madrid star was ruled out of contention to make it to Qatar and last week, it was confirmed that manager Luis Enrique had only named Athletic Club's Unai Simon, Brighton & Hove Albion's Robert Sanchez, and Brentford's David Raya in his squad.
Spanish journalist Jose Alvarez has now revealed a bizarre inciden where the RFEF seemed to be under the impression that De Gea quit international football.
He told news outlet El Chiringuito: “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. He told him that it was a technical decision. Obviously, David asked him what the reason was, but he was not given any further explanation.”
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Alvarez added: “A few days later David receives a message from (Luis) 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.
“The last year and a half De Gea has been very good, being a protagonist for Manchester United in almost every game and he was seen as being a part of the three in the national team.
“I do not say he should be a starter, but he believed he could contribute apart from experience. 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.”
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