Will Barcelona midfielder Gavi make Spain's World Cup squad?

Madrid – When Luis de la Fuente addressed the media on Thursday, the Spain coach spoke with the warmth of a family elder rather than a national-team selector. “I congratulated him privately when he made his return,” he said of Pablo Martín Páez Gavira, the Barcelona midfielder whose last 18 months have been defined as much by hospital scans as by signature high-energy performances. The question now looming over Spanish football is whether that warmth will translate into a plane ticket to the United States, Canada and Mexico for this summer’s World Cup.

Gavi, 21, re-entered the competitive arena only on 15 March, playing the final eight minutes of Barcelona’s 5-2 win over Sevilla. Five days later, when De la Fuente unveiled his squad for the forthcoming friendly against Serbia, the Andalusian’s name was conspicuously absent. The omission was neither a surprise nor a snub. After successive serious knee injuries — an ACL rupture in Spain’s November 2023 qualifier against Georgia and a meniscus tear last August — the midfielder has logged a solitary Spain appearance, a 91st-minute cameo versus France in the 2025 UEFA Nations League semi-final.

De la Fuente, however, has never hidden his emotional attachment to the player he labels “the 27th man” of the Euro 2024 campaign, which Spain ultimately won without Gavi. “His injury back in 2023 was one of the toughest moments I’ve experienced since I took the job,” the 64-year-old told DAZN this week. “I lived through it with pain, as if a family member had suffered an accident.”

That bond was forged during Spain’s previous cycle, when Gavi’s relentless pressing and fearlessness in possession became emblematic of De la Fuente’s tactical identity. The King himself accepted a Gavi shirt during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar — a symbolic nod to the teenager’s cultural cachet. Yet sentiment will collide with pragmatism over the next two months as the coach weighs whether a player with 80 senior minutes since October can be parachuted into a squad already stacked with elite midfield options.

Rodri, Martín Zubimendi, Pedri and Dani Olmo are considered certainties, fitness permitting. Fabián Ruiz and Mikel Merino would join them had injuries not clouded their timelines; Real Betis’ Pablo Fornals and Real Sociedad’s Carlos Soler have been summoned in their stead. Further down the hierarchy, Fermín López continues to press for inclusion. De la Fuente’s mantra — dressing-room harmony first — means every candidate must arrive in camp with competitive rhythm.

Gavi’s predicament is twofold. Positionally, his natural slot overlaps with Pedri, while deeper roles are occupied by Frenkie de Jong, Marc Bernal and Eric García. As a utility option he could, in theory, replicate the versatility of Barça teammate Marc Casadó, but Hansi Flick’s looming Champions League quarter-final with Atlético Madrid and a neck-and-neck Liga title race limit the experimental minutes Gavi might otherwise receive.

Still, the door remains ajar. “Two months is a long time in football,” De la Fuente stressed. “We will assess the situation again then.” For his part, Gavi is said to believe a blistering club run can force his way into the final 23. Spain’s coaching staff will monitor every touch, every sprint, every training session between now and the deadline, conscious that a fully fit Gavi offers a unique cocktail of aggression and technical security.

Whether that will suffice against the backdrop of a crowded midfield canvas is the narrative that will dominate Spanish football until the squad sheet is unveiled. De la Fuente’s affection for his prodigy is undimmed; the arithmetic of selection, far less so.