'The Spanish Football Federation tried to call Messi up'

Del Bosque recently came out and said that he'd have loved the opportunity to coach Lionel Messi with the Spanish national team. Messi was eligible to play for Spain but chose to represent his native Argentina instead.

"The Spanish Football Federation tried to call Messi up because Gines Melendez and everyone else convinced me [that Messi would play for Spain]. They knew that they'd done everything they could've done.

"How would Messi have fitted into the Spain team? The bad thing is fitting a bad player into a system. Fitting in a good player is never difficult. We're talking about the best player in the world and no one can deny that."

Del Bosque also made the difficult decision to replace Iker Casillas with David de Gea in goal for La Roja after the 2014 World Cup.

"It seemed that this change came about because of De Gea," Del Bosque said.

"A player that played well for so many years at Manchester United but hadn't managed [to displace Casillas].

"At that moment, no one could that [De Gea] was the natural successor to Casillas."