Cadena SER<\/a>, Morata shared his perspective: “I would have loved to be at the World Cup. But I went to New York almost feeling like a part of it, getting to see so many players who first broke into the national team alongside me.<\/p>\n“You can think about what might have happened if the year had turned out differently, but there’s no point. It was already clear to me before Luis de la Fuente named the squad. We’re human, and in the end, part of you always holds onto the dream that he’ll take you; there’s always hope.<\/p>\n
“I think I could have contributed to the group and brought good energy, but it was also going to be easier for the boss if I wasn’t there. Imagine starting a World Cup and having everyone immediately question what I’m doing there. It was better to avoid that noise.<\/p>\n
“Borja [Iglesias] and the other forwards also deserved it. I’ve always spoken highly of [Mikel] Oyarzabal’s quality, just as I have about Ferran [Torres]. He scored the goal I would have loved to score myself, and I was thrilled for him.”<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the phone call from the manager, Morata added: “Yes, De la Fuente called me to say I wasn’t going. I think it was even before the preliminary squad list came out. I thanked him, told him I completely understood, and wished them all the luck in the world.<\/p>\n
“The only thing is, he didn’t keep his promise to me – he told me that if he won the title, he’d ride out on a horse holding the trophy… Maybe he still has time (laughs). The lads kept their promises, though – [Marc] Cucurella has his tattoo right there.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite the heartache of missing out on the showpiece event, Morata remained closely connected to the squad and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30621,3028,24475,10246,1644,17,369],"class_list":["post-82434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-a-morata","tag-como","tag-leganes","tag-segunda-division","tag-serie-a","tag-spain","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}