Del Bosque drops Torres hint

Vicente del Bosque has hinted Fernando Torres will be named in Spain’s FIFA World Cup squad, by stating his trust in the Chelsea striker.

Spain manager Del Bosque had been expected to trim his 30-man party down to 23 on Sunday, though that decision has been delayed as he wants to run the rule over squad members from Real and Atletico Madrid, who contested Saturday’s UEFA Champions League final.

The decision on whether to include Torres in the final list has been the matter of contention, with the 30-year-old having endured a difficult season in England’s top flight – the former Liverpool man scoring just five Premier League goals.

However, Del Bosque appeared to suggest that Torres will be heading to Brazil when Spain defend the World Cup, and gave him his full backing.

“We always have to choose from a group of players and in this case Fernando, apart from his statistics, we’ve seen him playing well the last few matches,” he said.

“And we won’t go against what we think is best and if we think that the best thing is to take Torres then we’ll be more than happy to because he’s always given us good results and we trust him completely.”

Spain open their World Cup campaign with a Group B encounter against the Netherlands on June 13 – a repeat of the 2010 final.

Prior to that, Del Bosque’s men face warm-up matches against Bolivia and El Salvador.