Diego Le\u00f3n\u2019s early steps at Manchester United have been unconventional. The Paraguayan summer signing has yet to make a first-team appearance, but he has already earned his first senior cap for Paraguay.<\/p>\n
Aside from 45 minutes against Liverpool in a Premier League 2 game in September, Le\u00f3n has not frequently featured for United\u2019s Under-21s. From the start the plan was for him to primarily train with the first-team, even if that limited his match minutes. He has been named on the bench in back-to-back Premier League matches against Brentford and Sunderland, but a club debut has not followed.<\/p>\n
Le\u00f3n was included in Paraguay\u2019s senior squad for this month\u2019s international window. He was an unused substitute in the friendly against Japan, then made his debut in the subsequent match with South Korea in Seoul. The young defender played the final nine minutes, plus stoppage time, of the 2\u20130 defeat.<\/p>\n
In the days before his arrival was announced by the club, Le\u00f3n outlined his short-term ambition: \u201cEveryone thinks I\u2019ll go out on loan, but I don\u2019t have that mindset. I\u2019m going to kill it in the preseason and within one or two games, I\u2019ll already be playing with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrick Dorgu, United\u2019s starting left back, offered early praise in summer media: \u201cHe brings a lot of power and energy to the team and he\u2019s very young, so it takes time to join into the team, but he\u2019s doing really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reports have noted Le\u00f3n is already popular among more senior teammates, an encouraging sign as he adapts to a new environment and limited competitive minutes. His senior international appearance is a significant milestone and also raises the possibility of World Cup involvement next summer. Santiago Arzamendia remains a more senior and experienced cover option at left back, but the Estudiantes defender has not been selected in 11 months.<\/p>\n
Young players winning senior international minutes before a Manchester United club debut is not unprecedented. For Le\u00f3n, the immediate objective is clear: translate international exposure into the club manager\u2019s trust and secure the nod from Amorim at first-team level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Diego Le\u00f3n made his Paraguay debut before a Manchester United first-team appearance, a notable start<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,969],"tags":[1081,1012,1100],"class_list":["post-3835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-adaptation","tag-burnley-style","tag-defence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}