Fernando Torres refused to be drawn out on his Chelsea teammate Juan Mata's omission from the Spain squad for the World Cup qualifiers, while England confirmed the withdrawals of Frank Lampard and Ryan Bertrand for their first game against San Marino.
Ashley Cole was also in the news, accepting a misconduct charge from the FA for his now infamous tweet.
Mata, since being given a two-week break, in the last international week, has been Chelsea's best player, pulling the strings and making the new-look side tick. So, when Vicente Del Bosque announced his Spain squad, many were surprised to not see Mata's name in the 23 players listed.
"Mata is sad about not coming to the national team, but he is playing well. I won't talk much about him because I can't be objective," Torres told reporters ahead of Spain's clash against Belarus Friday.
"We have very versatile players and that is very useful. Today we have the 23 players the coach believe should be here.
"In Spain we are lucky to have more than 23 players able to come. Those who have been out at times, we know how good they are."
"The national team doesn't always play with the same players, there are players who come in and others who go out. That's the greatness of this team, we have 23 starting players."
Meanwhile, Cole accepted FA's charges over the tweet he sent after the association released a report giving the details of John Terry's hearing, where he received a four-match ban.
Cole, who spoke on behalf of his club skipper, spoke out angrily after the report claimed he had changed his statements. "Hahahahaa, well done #fa I lied did I, #BUNCHOFT***S," he tweeted.
Cole later took down the tweet and also apologized for his behavior. "Ashley Cole has admitted an FA charge in relation to a Twitter comment which was improper and/or brought the game into disrepute," an FA statement read.
"Cole has requested a non-personal hearing, the date of which has yet to be set."
Cole is a part of the England squad for the World Cup qualifiers against San Marino and Poland, however, Lampard and Bertrand will not be available for the first game Friday.
"Frank had a scan earlier on in the week," England manager Roy Hodgson said. "He tried to train apart from the team and tried to do a little bit more on Wednesday morning.
"He still felt a slight problem with his calf muscle and it was re-scanned and on that they found a few fibres had a slight tear. It is not a big problem but it was decided the best was for him to go back to his club and get treatment on a daily basis and they will reassess on Sunday.
"When Bertrand fell ill we were hoping it would turn out to be one of those 24-hour things but it has turned out to be more of a serious illness than that. Again we have sent him back to try to recover and we hope to recover him on Sunday along with Frank."
