Porro, Kudus withdraw from national teams for international break
· Yahoo Sports
Depending on how you look at it, fewer Tottenham Hotspur players being called up for international duty might be a good thing. At present only two senior Spurs players have been tapped by their national team, and both play for the Netherlands — central defenders Micky van de Ven and Jan Paul van Hecke were both given the nod by Dutch manager Xavi Hernandez.
Two players have been withdrawn from their international duties, however. Pedro Porro was taken off of Spain’s squad after sustaining what looked like a hamstring injury in Tottenham’s 2-3 loss at home to Aston Villa on Saturday. And according to Alasdair Gold at Football.London, Mohammed Kudus has voluntarily withdrawn himself from the Ghana squad in order to continue his recovery from injury and return to fitness.
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Porro’s withdrawal is obvious and makes sense, but Kudus’s decision is slightly curious, however welcome. Kudus hasn’t started since before his injury last season and while he’s steadily improved in his cameo appearances this season — Saturday’s match in which he had an assist and another waved off as offside was his best performance — it reflects well on his commitment to Spurs that he’d rather spend the next three weeks in London trying to get match fit rather than play AFCON qualifiers.
Elsewhere, two Spurs reserve players and academy graduates were called up to represent England U19. Defender Malachi Hardy and attacker Luca Williams-Barnett both got the nod. Hardy got lots of minutes in preseason for Tottenham and turned a lot of heads, while Williams-Barnett is considered one of the jewels of the academy and has been training with the first team, though he has yet to make a Premier League bench this season. While both players have been part of the England youth setup for a while, this is the first U19 call-up for both players.
There’s another name on that roster you might recognize. Tynan Thompson is a Spurs academy graduate who left the club for Manchester United this summer. He’s currently in United’s development squad.