Barcelona are carrying less and less clout in the Spain national team.
When La Roja finished second at the 2013 Confederations Cup to hosts Brazil, nine of their squad hailed from Camp Nou, yet from that high, the number of players coming from the Catalan city have gradually been whittled down.
Indeed, former Blaugrana boss Luis Enrique named just two players from his former club in his first squad, which will face England at Wembley on Saturday before tackling Croatia in Elche on Tuesday.
In 2018, the number of Barcelona players in the Spanish national squad (3.6) is at the lowest for a decade.
In part, this has been brought about by the international retirements of Gerard Pique and Andres Iniesta while Jordi Alba has controversially been overlooked by the new coach , whose selection of Sergi Roberto has ensured that Sergio Busquets will not be the sole representative of his former club.
Not since May 2016 has there been only one Barca player in a Spain squad, when Marc Bartra was the only player called for the post-season friendly against Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Roberto has argued that it is “anecdotal that there are only two Barcelona players” in the squad, and he may be right. In recent years, there have been several squads that have contained so few players – the October 2017 teams that beat Israel and Albania, or the November 2016 squad that drew against England.
The truth is, though, that with Alba left out, Luis Enrique has few other players to look at in the Barcelona starting XI, with Pique - the only other Spaniard who regularly appears for Ernesto Valverde's side - already having ruled himself out of returning to the national side.
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In some ways, it’s a direct consequence of the progressive turnover of heavyweight players like Carles Puyol, who quit the international game, or others like Victor Valdes, David Villa, Pedro, Cesc Fabregas and Thiago Alcantara, who left Barcelona, or others still like Xavi and Iniesta, who did both.
These circumstances have coincided with the fact that Barca missed out on signing Marco Asensio and failed to convinced Dani Ceballos to sign up. Both are now in Real Madrid’s ranks and earned call-ups to Luis Enrique's first squad.
Goal
Additionally, both Denis Suarez and Munir El Haddadi have already played for Spain, while Carles Alena, just back from serious injury, and Sergi Samper were both regulars in the national youth teams. Both hope to make progress up the ladder.
If the quota of Barcelona players in the national team is diminishing, it is because, in turn, that there are only seven eligible players (plus Pique) for the coach to select from. In contrast, there are 15 foreigners.
Both Spain and Barca find themselves in a cycle of change.