'We do not injure players' — Spain coach fires back at critics over Lamine Yamal's prominence

Spanish national team head coach Luis de la Fuente has maintained his stance that it is not the responsibility of the Spanish national team to manage the minutes of Lamine Yamal, employing an important statistic to make his case. 

The 17-year-old led the Spanish national team to the European Championship last summer, becoming the youngest player in history to achieve.

His successful post-season came off the back of a league season with Barcelona, where he played in 37 of 38 league matches. This prominence has risen this season, and he has started all but one of the Blaugrana's 10 games. 

In the first international break of the season, Spain's coach Luis de la Fuente was criticised for starting the youngster in the two matches played, and he fired back at his critics. 

Ahead of the international break next week, he was once again questioned about rationing Yamal’s game time. Using stats from FIFA, he explained that players were only with their national team only 3.5% of the games they played in a season, suggesting it was not fair to place the responsibility at the hands of the national team.

 "I’ll give you a fact: FIFA has done a study of the last 12 years of 40 days. The percentage of minutes played by players with the national team is 3.5 per cent,” he told reporters. 

“National team matches do not ‘injure’ anyone. We must compete and to do so we need the best. And with the few windows that we have, we must always turn to them. If I had the players in a club, for 10 or 11 months, I would manage their rest in a different way, but as a coach I must always call on the best."