England’s 2026 World Cup Squad: Tuchel's Quest to End 60 Years of Hurt
England arrive at the 2026 World Cup with a familiar burden and a very different edge. Sixty years without a major trophy hangs over them, but this time the man on the touchline is Thomas Tuchel, a serial winner with a ruthless qualifying record and a squad built to suffocate opponents without the ball.
They stormed through qualifying as the first European side ever to win eight World Cup qualifiers without conceding. Ten games under Tuchel in 2025 brought nine wins, nine clean sheets and a 90% win rate – the best calendar year in England’s history when playing at least 10 matches. Then came March. Uruguay and Japan exposed a few cracks, stripped away some of the sheen and served as a timely reminder: nothing is guaranteed.
This is the 26-man group Tuchel trusts to carry the weight of a nation.
The Coach: Tuchel’s England
Tuchel’s numbers are brutal. Nine wins from his first 10 games, nine clean sheets, and a defensive structure that has turned England into a machine. He has matched Glenn Hoddle’s early win record and gone beyond him in shutting teams out.
His club CV is the blueprint for why he was hired: trophies with Borussia Dortmund, a domestic treble and two Ligue 1 titles at Paris St-Germain, a Champions League and Club World Cup with Chelsea, a Bundesliga with Bayern Munich. He has built superteams, repaired fractured dressing rooms, and handled egos far bigger than any England camp can throw at him.
His own career was cut short by injury at 24. He studied business administration, waited tables at ‘Radio Bar’ in Stuttgart, and clawed his way back into the game. There is nothing romantic about his football. It is precise, demanding, and unforgiving. That’s the environment this squad has walked into.
Goalkeepers: Pickford’s Gloves, Trafford’s Future
Jordan Pickford (Everton, 82 caps, 32)
Tuchel talked up a “race” for the No.1 shirt last year. It never truly materialised. Jordan Pickford goes into a fifth straight major tournament as England’s first-choice goalkeeper and the man who has defined an era between the posts.
He already sits second on England’s all-time list for major tournament appearances (26), behind only Harry Kane. Peter Shilton remains the only man to have played more games in goal for England. Pickford has long since passed Gordon Banks’ record of seven consecutive clean sheets, setting a new national mark of 10 in a row last year.
He saved a penalty in the 2018 World Cup shoot-out win over Colombia, ending a 20-year wait for an England keeper to make that kind of intervention at a major tournament. Domestically, only David Raya has kept more Premier League clean sheets than Pickford’s 23 over the past two seasons. The shirt is his, and he has earned every stitch.
Dean Henderson (Crystal Palace, 4 caps, 29)
Dean Henderson’s international career has been stop-start bordering on stalled. Four years separated his debut from his second cap. His first competitive England clean sheet finally arrived in Albania in World Cup qualifying last November.
At club level, the story has changed. After just 48 league starts across four seasons from 2020-21 to 2023-24, he has missed only one top-flight game in the last two campaigns and sits third in the league for clean sheets over that period with 22. His defining moment came in last season’s FA Cup final: a VAR red-card scare survived, a penalty saved, and a string of outstanding stops as Crystal Palace lifted their first major trophy.
Part of the Under-20 World Cup-winning squad in 2017, he now reaches his first World Cup as a genuine, if still understudy, option.
James Trafford (Manchester City, 1 cap, 23)
James Trafford is the future wrapped in a goalkeeper’s jersey. He played every minute as Manchester City claimed a domestic cup double this season, though his league involvement ended after three games when Gianluigi Donnarumma arrived.
City had sold him to Burnley in 2023, watched him keep 29 clean sheets in 45 games and become the first goalkeeper to win the PFA Championship Player of the Year, then brought him back. His England debut came in March’s 1-1 draw with Uruguay.
He already has a defining moment in an England shirt: the last-minute penalty save in the 2023 Under-21 European Championship final against Spain, sealing the Young Lions’ first title in almost 40 years. Raised in a farming family in Greysouthen, Cumbria, he learnt to drive on a tractor and had to teach his relatives the offside rule. Now he’s learning the ropes at a World Cup.
Defenders: Versatility, Scar Tissue and a New Left-Back
Reece James (Chelsea, 22 caps, 26)
Reece James arrives in America with a body that has been through too much for a 26-year-old. A hamstring injury in March – his tenth since December 2020 – threatened his World Cup place, but he returned against Liverpool on 9 May and made it.
He has played just one major tournament game for England, against Scotland at Euro 2020, having missed the 2022 World Cup with a knee injury and Euro 2024 with yet another hamstring issue. His lone international goal, a free-kick against Latvia in March 2025, was a reminder of the talent that keeps managers waiting for him.
Captain of Chelsea since 2023 and the last survivor of Tuchel’s 2021 Champions League-winning squad, James has played in four straight FA Cup finals, losing all of them. This tournament is a chance to rewrite his story with England.
Ezri Konsa (Aston Villa, 18 caps, 28)
Ezri Konsa has quietly become one of England’s most reliable defenders. Only Harry Kane played more minutes than his 555 in World Cup qualifying, a run that saw him equal Bob Crompton’s 1910 record of 11 straight wins for an England defender.
In the Premier League this season, only Virgil van Dijk has been dribbled past fewer times among defenders with 30 or more games. Konsa has also drawn more fouls than any defender since his debut in October 2019 – 337 and counting.
He called his first England goal, away to Serbia last October, “a moment I will never forget”. Three appearances at Euro 2024, including a start in the quarter-final against Switzerland, have already hardened him for this stage.
Marc Guehi (Manchester City, 27 caps, 25)
Marc Guehi has made a habit of winning things. He captained Crystal Palace to FA Cup and Community Shield glory in 2025, then lifted the FA Cup again with Manchester City this season.
He joins an elite group as only the fourth player to win consecutive FA Cup finals with different clubs, following Arthur Kinnaird, Brian Talbot and Olivier Giroud. He scored his first England goal in a 5-0 win in Serbia in World Cup qualifying and wore the armband for his country for the first time in March’s defeat by Japan.
Born in Ivory Coast, raised in south London with a minister for a father and a drum set in the church choir, Guehi brings calm authority to Tuchel’s back line.
Tino Livramento (Newcastle United, 5 caps, 23)
Tino Livramento offers Tuchel the luxury of a genuine two-footed full-back. He has split his Premier League minutes this season between right-back (61%) and left-back (39%), a versatility admired by both Eddie Howe and Tuchel.
His World Cup place looked in jeopardy after a thigh injury against Bournemouth in April. He only started 14 league games in an injury-hit campaign, but when fit he changes the balance of the side.
A Chelsea academy product who never made a senior appearance for the club, he moved to Southampton for £5m and left for Newcastle at a £35m profit. Eligible for Portugal through his father and Scotland through his mother, he chose England and arrives with two 5-0 wins already on his cap list.
John Stones (Manchester City, 87 caps, 32)
John Stones is the veteran thread running through England’s recent history. Named in a third straight World Cup squad despite just eight starts for Manchester City this season, he will leave the club this summer after a decade and a medal haul that includes six league titles, a Champions League, three FA Cups, five EFL Cups and a Club World Cup.
His career has been plagued by injuries – 32 separate issues, 737 days missed, and only 294 appearances from 592 possible City games since 2016-17. Bernardo Silva, who arrived a year later, has played 206 matches more.
For England, though, Stones has been a constant. Only Kane has more tournament appearances. Stones’ 26 include 12 at World Cups and every game of England’s runs to the Euro 2020 and 2024 finals. Two of his three international goals came in the 6-1 demolition of Panama in 2018. Experience doesn’t come more battle-tested than this.
Nico O’Reilly (Manchester City, 3 caps, 21)
Nico O’Reilly is the tactical wildcard. Long seen as a No.10, he has exploded at Manchester City as a marauding left-back who can defend, invert into midfield and arrive in the box to score. This season, 77% of his Premier League minutes have come at left-back, with the rest split between left wing and central midfield.
Only Erling Haaland has played more league minutes for City this season. O’Reilly scored both goals in the EFL Cup final and started the FA Cup final, underlining his importance in a squad stacked with stars.
Scouted by City at six, he went to St Patrick’s primary school in Collyhurst, the same as World Cup winner Nobby Stiles. His mother Holli says she knew he was “special” when he was three months old. Tuchel clearly agrees.
Dan Burn (Newcastle United, 6 caps, 34)
Dan Burn’s journey is pure football romance. Once collecting trolleys at Asda and earning £55 for Darlington’s reserves, the Blyth-born defender now walks into a World Cup with England.
Released by Newcastle’s Centre of Excellence at 11, he drifted into Sunday league before Darlington picked him up. Spells at Fulham, Yeovil, Birmingham, Wigan and Brighton followed, before he finally returned to his boyhood club.
His goal in the 2025 EFL Cup final etched him into Newcastle folklore as they ended a 70-year wait for a domestic trophy. Only Kevin Davies has been older than Burn – 32 years and 316 days – when making an England debut since 1951. This season, he has split his minutes across left-back, left centre-back and even a brief spell at right centre-back. He brings height, heart and hard miles.
Djed Spence (Tottenham Hotspur, 4 caps, 25)
Djed Spence’s selection comes with a twist. He broke his jaw three days before the squad was named, yet Tuchel still took him, a sign of how highly he values Spence’s versatility and dynamism.
Right-footed but used primarily at left-back this season, Spence has played more minutes than in any previous top-flight campaign, even if he is not a guaranteed starter at Spurs. He became the 80th Tottenham player to win an England cap when he debuted against Serbia in September.
Signed in 2022, he had to wait 881 days and endure three loan spells before starting a game for Spurs. Omitted from their Europa League squad at the start of 2024-25, he fought his way back to feature in the final win over Manchester United. That resilience now gets its biggest stage.
Jarell Quansah (Bayer Leverkusen, 1 cap, 23)
Jarell Quansah left his boyhood club Liverpool in search of minutes and found them in Germany. At Bayer Leverkusen he played in 11 Champions League games in his first season, showcasing his range as a ball-playing centre-half who can also slot in at right-back.
He had been called up by Gareth Southgate, Lee Carsley and Tuchel in five different squads before finally making his England debut last November. Earlier in 2025, he played a key role in England’s Under-21 European Championship triumph.
He ended Liverpool’s 2025 title-winning season with just 13 league appearances, four of them starts. The move to Leverkusen was, in his words, a “no brainer”. Now he brings that boldness to a World Cup.
Midfielders: Engines, Elegance and a Veteran Chasing History
Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid, 46 caps, 22)
Jude Bellingham arrives searching for his best form. A shoulder injury disrupted his season at Real Madrid and he was left out of England’s games against Wales and Latvia, with Tuchel admitting he might have omitted him even if fully fit.
Yet his major tournament record is already imposing. He scored against Iran at the 2022 World Cup, then against Serbia and Slovakia at Euro 2024, and has 15 major tournament appearances before his 23rd birthday. He is on the brink of becoming the youngest Englishman to reach 50 caps.
In 2023-24, he dragged Real to a La Liga and Champions League double with 23 goals and 12 assists, winning La Liga Player of the Season and the Champions League Young Player of the Season. If he catches fire this summer, England’s ceiling shifts.
Elliot Anderson (Nottingham Forest, 7 caps, 23)
Elliot Anderson has gone from newcomer to near-certain starter in nine months. Tuchel has called him “an elite football player with the right attitude and talent”, and the numbers back it up.
Only James Garner has run further in the Premier League this season than Anderson’s 403.5km. He leads all players for possession won (302) and all midfielders for successful passes (1,999). That blend of stamina, bite and composure has made him indispensable.
Raised in Newcastle’s academy and capped by Scotland at youth level up to Under-21s, he left his boyhood club for Nottingham Forest in 2024 because of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules. Eddie Howe described it as “probably the most reluctant transfer I’ll ever do”. England are now the beneficiaries.
Morgan Rogers (Aston Villa, 13 caps, 23)
Morgan Rogers is the iron man of Aston Villa. He has started all but one of their league games over the past two seasons and has been almost ever-present this year. Across Europe’s top-five leagues, only Newcastle’s Harvey Barnes has played more games than Rogers’ 55 in 2025-26, and he ranks third for distance covered in the Premier League.
He became the youngest Englishman since Steven Gerrard in 2001 to score in a major European final and has featured in all but one England game under Tuchel before the World Cup warm-ups. His only international goal so far, against Wales in October 2025, made him the 34th Aston Villa player to score for England – matching Manchester United’s record.
He is Tuchel’s prototype wide midfielder: tireless, direct and endlessly available.
Declan Rice (Arsenal, 72 caps, 27)
Declan Rice is the constant. He has started England’s last 19 major tournament matches and still hasn’t scored, but his value is measured in control, not goals.
Durable almost to the point of disbelief, Rice has missed only 17 top-flight games in eight seasons and just four since joining Arsenal. He has played in 157 of 171 possible matches for the Gunners, anchoring a team that has finally won the Premier League title.
He left West Ham with 15 goals in 245 appearances and a European trophy as captain in the 2023 Conference League final. Born in Kingston upon Thames, he played three friendlies for Ireland in 2018 before switching allegiance. Ian Wright has said that if England win the World Cup, there should be a new trophy on top of the Ballon d’Or for Rice. Hyperbole? Maybe. But it shows the scale of expectation around him.
Kobbie Mainoo (Manchester United, 12 caps, 21)
Kobbie Mainoo’s season was split in two. Under Ruben Amorim at Manchester United, he did not start a league game until 17 January. When Michael Carrick arrived, everything changed. Mainoo started 15 of 16 matches, earned a new contract to 2031, and made his 100th United appearance in May.
Carrick called him “complete” after a standout display against Brentford. England already knew that. Mainoo started every knockout game at Euro 2024 and was central to the run to the final. A dip in club form saw him go from September 2024 to March 2026 without a cap, but Tuchel has restored him to the core.
He also scored the decisive goal in the 2024 FA Cup final against Manchester City. Big games do not faze him.
Jordan Henderson (Brentford, 89 caps, 36)
Jordan Henderson is chasing history. He turns 36 on the day England open against Croatia and could become the first Englishman to appear at four World Cups. He is also poised to become the first to play in seven major tournaments, moving past Sol Campbell, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney.
His appearance against Uruguay in March made him only the fourth Englishman with an international career spanning more than 15 years, joining Stanley Matthews, Peter Shilton and Rooney. Yet his 19 major tournament matches place him only 12th on the all-time list.
The last of his three England goals came against Senegal at the 2022 World Cup. He is no longer the first name on the team sheet, but his experience and presence in the dressing room remain invaluable.
Eberechi Eze (Arsenal, 16 caps, 27)
Eberechi Eze has made himself a folk hero in north London. Five of his seven league goals this season came against Tottenham, the club he nearly joined before choosing to return to Arsenal. He became only the second player ever to score four or more in the north London derby in a single season, after Ted Drake in 1934-35.
Those strikes lit up a first year at the Emirates that ended with a Premier League title, following his £67.5m move from Crystal Palace. He had already delivered Palace’s first major trophy with the winner in last season’s FA Cup final.
For England, he scored in back-to-back qualifiers against Latvia and Serbia and featured off the bench at Euro 2024. Now he brings his flair and fearless dribbling to a World Cup stage.
Forwards: Kane’s Record Chase and a Cast of Match-Winners
Harry Kane (Bayern Munich, 112 caps, 32)
Harry Kane has never been more lethal. This season he has scored 63 goals in 55 games for club and country, hitting his 500th career goal in February against Werder Bremen.
His penalty record is extraordinary: 108 scored from 121 attempts in his career, including shootouts. Since his miss against France in the 2022 World Cup quarter-final, he has converted 47 of his last 50.
With 15 goals at major tournaments, only Jurgen Klinsmann, Gerd Muller, Miroslav Klose and Cristiano Ronaldo sit ahead of him among Europeans. He needs three more to pass Gary Lineker’s England record of 10 World Cup goals. His strike against Albania in November took him beyond Pele’s 77 international goals; one more will take him into the all-time top 10, level with Neymar and Godfrey Chitalu on 79.
Every England campaign in this era starts and ends with Kane.
Marcus Rashford (Barcelona, on loan, 70 caps, 28)
Marcus Rashford’s England story is one of cameos and flashes. He has played 18 major tournament matches but started only two of them. Three goals at the 2022 World Cup – one against Iran, two against Wales – showed what he can do when trusted.
Form for England has been patchy: just one goal in his last 13 caps, a 90th-minute penalty in a 5-0 win in Serbia last September. Yet his club season at Barcelona has been quietly impressive. On loan from Manchester United, he has 14 goals and 11 assists in 48 games, and his free-kick in May’s El Clasico helped seal La Liga.
Hansi Flick praised his “perfect mentality” after he lost his starting spot to a fit-again Raphinha. Rashford now arrives as a weapon off the bench, capable of changing games with a single strike.
Anthony Gordon (Newcastle United, 17 caps, 25)
Anthony Gordon has lived two seasons in one. In the Premier League he scored seven times, four from the spot. In the Champions League he was electric. Only Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia scored more than his 10 goals in the competition this season.
He became just the second Englishman after Kane to reach double figures in a Champions League campaign and, against Qarabag, the second player ever to score four goals in the first half of a game.
His England major tournament experience is limited to a two-minute cameo at Euro 2024, but his stock has soared. After returning from a minor hip injury in April, Eddie Howe left him on the bench “with a partial view to the future”, amid heavy links to Bayern Munich. That future might start here.
Bukayo Saka (Arsenal, 48 caps, 24)
Bukayo Saka has already inscribed his name in Arsenal and England history. On 48 caps at the time of writing, he is on the brink of becoming the fourth player to win 50 caps while at Arsenal, joining Ashley Cole, Tony Adams and David Seaman.
He overtook Cliff Bastin’s record of 12 goals to become Arsenal’s leading England scorer with a strike against Wales in October 2025. At the 2022 World Cup he scored three times in four games, two against Iran and one against Senegal.
His league numbers dipped from 11, 14 and 16 goals across three seasons to six and seven in the last two, but he finally achieved his dream: a Premier League title with his boyhood club. “There was laughing, there was joking, they’re not laughing any more,” he said of Arsenal’s critics. That edge now travels with him to the World Cup.
Noni Madueke (Arsenal, 10 caps, 24)
Noni Madueke calls himself a “dual threat” and plays like it. Comfortable on either flank, he scored his first England goal in the 5-0 win in Serbia last October and earned glowing praise from Tuchel for his pace, directness and dribbling.
His path has been unconventional. He started at Tottenham, then a conversation between his father and the father of then-PSV defender Ian Maatsen at a youth tournament set up a move to Holland. A Dutch Cup with PSV led to a switch to Chelsea in January 2023, where he helped win the Conference League and Club World Cup.
Now at Arsenal, he talks about moving into fashion after football. For now, his expression comes with the ball at his feet.
Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa, 20 caps, 30)
Ollie Watkins arrives with a point to prove. Left out of Tuchel’s 35-man squad for March’s friendlies, he admitted it put “fuel in your belly to prove what you can do and prove people wrong”.
He scored just once in his first 19 games of the season in all competitions, but still extended his remarkable streak of hitting double figures in league goals in 10 straight campaigns. In April he became the first Aston Villa player in 66 years to reach 100 goals for the club.
His finest England moment remains the stoppage-time winner against the Netherlands that sent England into the Euro 2024 final. Six goals in 20 caps hint at a striker who can deliver in big moments, even if his route to this World Cup has not been smooth.
Ivan Toney (Al-Ahli, 7 caps, 30)
Ivan Toney is the surprise name on the plane, but his numbers in Saudi Arabia are impossible to ignore. He scored 32 goals in 32 league games for Al-Ahli this season, and 64 in 86 games over two campaigns, missing the Golden Boot by a single goal after Julian Quinones’ final-day hat-trick.
His England minutes under Tuchel have been minimal – a three-minute cameo in the defeat by Senegal last June – yet his reputation as a penalty specialist remains towering. Before leaving England he had missed only one of his last 31 penalties, then scored his first 24 for Al-Ahli before finally failing from the spot in February.
Banned for eight months in 2023 for breaching FA betting rules, he has rebuilt his career abroad. Now he has a chance to reshape his international reputation too.
Tuchel has his mix: hardened veterans, emerging stars, tactical chameleons and pure goalscorers. The qualifying campaign suggested England can control games like never before. The March friendlies reminded them how quickly that illusion can crack.
Sixty years after their only World Cup triumph, this group carries the same question that has haunted every generation since 1966: is this the one that finally finishes the job?
