Jota earns senior Portugal call-up

Diogo Jota has earned his first senior international call-up for Portugal and is one of ten Wolves players departing to represent their country this weekend.

Jota’s fine form for Wolves has seen him step up from the under-21s to join Rui Patricio, Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho, who has earned a recall to Fernando Santos’ squad.

Leander Dendoncker has also been rewarded for his impressive performances with a return to the Belgium squad for the first time since September.

Matt Doherty, Romain Saiss and Raul Jimenez also depart for senior international duty, while Ruben Vinagre and Morgan Gibbs-White are away with younger age groups.

The Portuguese quartet begin their Euro 2020 qualifying campaign with a double-header in Lisbon against Ukraine and Serbia on Friday and Monday.

Dendoncker is back in the Belgium fold and also beginning qualifications with a home game against Russia on Thursday and a trip to Cyprus three days later.

Mick McCarthy’s Republic of Ireland squad features Doherty and they begin Euro 2020 qualification in Gibraltar on Saturday and continue at home to Georgia the following Tuesday.

Mexico face two international friendlies in California and Jimenez will hope to feature against Chile on Friday and Paraguay on Tuesday.

Saiss faces Africa Cup of Nations qualification matches either side of the weekend against Malawi on Friday and at home to Argentina on Tuesday.

Vinagre is now going into two friendly matches with Portugal’s under-20s and will hope for game time in Germany at home to England.

Finally, Gibbs-White links up with England under-19s and faces a triple header of Euro U19 Championship qualifiers at St George’s Park against Czech Republic, Greece and Denmark.

 

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