MADRID, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Manchester United goalkeeper, David de Gea may not get to play in the World Cup finals and has yet to debut for his country, but he will form part of the Spanish squad which defends their World title in Brazil next month.
For De Gea the step up to the full Spain squad is a natural progression after representing his country and junior and Under-21 level as well as being in the 2012 side which played at the Olympic Games.
"I am not in a hurry to debut as I am young and there are a lot of experienced goalkeeper' s here," said Del Gea in an interview with the El Mundo newspaper. "I hope that then the moment comes things work out well and that it will be the start of many appearances," he said, impressed at the quality of his companions.
"They are all talented, but if I had to highlight one player, it would be Andres Iniesta. When you see him up close it is incredible. He has a lot of class and always makes the right choices."
Iniesta had the honor of scoring the winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final, while 2014 will be De Gea' s first experience of such a tournament.
"I have been in Under-19, Under-20 and Under-21 competitions, but this is the biggest and I am looking forward to taking part. I know the goalkeepers in the squad (Pepe Reina and Iker Casillas) have been with the squad a long time, so I am here to learn and to enjoy it, although if anything happens I will be ready," he said.
De Gea is expected to be the natural successor to Casillas when the 33-year-old decides to retire, but admits that the current Real Madrid keeper is "an icon of the national team, the captain under whom we have won everything and it will be difficult to replace him and repeat what he has done."
Finally De Gea insisted that despite containing 16 of the 23 players who win in 2010 the current squad of the World and European Champions has not lost its desire to succeed.
"If you don' t have hunger to win in a World Cup..." he said, warning that all of Spain' s first stage rivals, Holland, Chile and Australia would present problems.
"You can' t trust anyone these days," he concluded.
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