Alba, Aspas respond to Spain slight with goals in Liga wins

Within 48 hours of being dropped by new Spain coach Luis Enrique, Jordi Alba and Iago Aspas responded on the field by scoring in standout wins for their teams in the Spanish league.

Alba scored once, provoked an own-goal and set up two more goals to fuel Barcelona’s 8-2 demolition of Huesca on Sunday, a day after Aspas ensured Celta Vigo surprised Atletico Madrid by sealing a 2-0 victory.

Their strong showings came after Luis Enrique left both players, along with Atletico’s Jorge “Koke” Resurreccion, out of his squad for upcoming matches against England and Croatia.

The three players appeared to have paid the price for Spain’s disappointing World Cup. Aspas and Koke both missed spot kicks in the penalty shootout with Russia in the round of 16. Luis Enrique took over Spain following the World Cup disappointment.

While striker Aspas was a relative newcomer to Spain with six goals in 13 appearances, left back Alba has 66 caps and eight goals, including one in the final of the 2012 European Championship when Spain routed Italy 4-0.

Luis Enrique hasn’t publicly given his reasons for dropping the players. He chose Chelsea’s in-form Marcos Alonso over Alba, who he coached at Barcelona for three years.

Alba said after the Huesca match that he was surprised to be overlooked by his former manager.

“I never spoke poorly of Luis Enrique, I don’t have a bad relationship with him,” Alba said. “I never said that he was a bad coach, I said the opposite, actually. I only stated that I would have liked to have had more minutes.”