Lopetegui – who took over from Vicente del Bosque in July – had lunch earlier this week with Casillas and reportedly told the Porto veteran that his 16-year highly successful worldwide career was over.
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Spain plays Belgium in a friendly on September 1.
It is not just the Arsenal right back Hector Bellerin who will be left at home scratching his head for the next two weeks, as his fellow Spaniard and Arsenal team mate Santi Cazorla has also been left out of the Spain national squad for the first worldwide break of the new season. “I can’t speak for him, all I can do is respect the decision they have taken”.
“For the first time in 11 years Cesc is not here”, Lopetegui said. “I can imagine it was a hard and complicated decision to leave out Casillas because we’re talking about a legendary player in Madrid and the national team, but everyone is entitled to their decision”.
However, Costa has scored two goals in two league starts for Chelsea and Lopetegui expects good things from the 27-year-old.
“All the players who have been called up have been analysed live”.
“Costa has had a great pre-season and we think his presence will be positive”, Lopetegui added.
Lopetegui: “We had a meeting a few days ago, but I had heard very good reports about him from colleagues that had worked with him”.
“Diego fits in perfectly with what we want”.
The former FC Porto coach recalled Chelsea’s in-form striker Diego Costa, as well as Juan Mata, Javi Martinez, Sergi Roberto and Paco Alcacer, who all missed Euro 2016.
Real Madrid’s Marco Asensio has made the list of 24 after an impressive summer with his club.
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He said during his presentation that he would oversee an “evolution” rather than a “revolution” of the national team, who were eliminated from Euro 2016 by Italy in the last 16.
