Nuno Tavares and William Saliba have been called up by their countries’ u21 squads for the October international break.
With many of Arsenal’s first-team players called up by their senior national sides, the club also have a few players preparing to represent their countries at u21 level.
We’ve already covered the England u21 call-ups for Folarin Balogun, Emile Smith Rowe, and Tyreece John-Jules, but Nuno Tavares and William Saliba have also received call-ups.
Tavares is in the Portugal u21 squad that will host Liechtenstein on October 7th at 20:15 BST, before travelling to Reykjavik to face Iceland on October 12th at 16:00.
It’s far from the 21-year-old’s first call-up, and he was in the squad last month as well. Portugal are in the midst of their Euro u21 championship qualifying campaign, and these two fixtures are both qualifiers.
Due to the way these competitions work, Tavares will be able to feature in the actual tournament in 2023 if Portugal make it, even though he’ll be well over 21 by then.
It’s the same story with Saliba with France, who has been called up for Euro u21 qualifiers against Ukraine on October 8th at 17:30 BST and against Serbia on October 12th, also at 17:30.
Saliba made his debut for the u21s last month in the first group game of qualification, a 3-0 win.
Good luck to the two young Arsenal stars with their matches over the next week!