England’s 26 for 2026: Tuchel’s Lions Pursue World Cup Glory
Sixty years. That’s the weight England carry into the 2026 World Cup. Six decades since Bobby Moore lifted a trophy that has haunted every generation since. This time, the Three Lions arrive with a German tactician at the wheel, a defence that refused to concede in qualifying, and a squad that blends scarred veterans with fearless upstarts.
Thomas Tuchel has already ripped up plenty of English conventions. Now he tries to rewrite history.
Tuchel’s England: Clean Sheets and Cold Edges
England didn’t just qualify. They strangled their group.
Eight wins from eight. No goals conceded. The first European side ever to pull that off in a World Cup qualifying campaign. Nine clean sheets in Tuchel’s first 10 games, nine wins, a 90% win rate across 2025 – the best calendar year in England’s history when they’ve played at least 10 matches.
Yet the sheen dulled in March. Uruguay and Japan exposed nerves and rust. The numbers still look pristine, but Tuchel knows tournament football punishes any illusion of control. This squad has been picked with that in mind: hard runners, multi-position defenders, penalty kings, and players who have already stared down the tension of finals.
Tuchel’s own story – career-ending injury at 24, business administration student, waiter at Stuttgart’s ‘Radio Bar’ – has always been about reinvention. So is this England.
Goalkeepers: Pickford and the New Pretenders
Jordan Pickford (Everton)
Tuchel called it a “race” for the No.1 shirt. It never really was.
Jordan Pickford heads to his fifth consecutive major tournament as England’s established goalkeeper, his 26 major tournament appearances already joint-second in national-team history behind only Harry Kane. Peter Shilton remains the only man to have played more times in goal for England.
Pickford arrives with a decade of scars and a wall of clean sheets. Ten in a row last year, a new England record that overtook Gordon Banks. A penalty save against Colombia at the 2018 World Cup that rewrote a nation’s shoot-out trauma. Across the last two Premier League seasons, only David Raya has kept more clean sheets.
He is still the one Tuchel trusts when everything tightens and the stadium holds its breath.
Dean Henderson (Crystal Palace)
Four years between his first and second caps. Dean Henderson’s England story has been about waiting, and then refusing to go away.
A clean sheet in Albania in World Cup qualifying last November was only his second competitive appearance for the national side, but his club form has become impossible to ignore. After four stop-start seasons with just 48 league starts, he’s missed only one top-flight game in the last two campaigns and sits third in the Premier League for clean sheets over that span.
He walked through fire in last year’s FA Cup final: VAR red-card check survived, penalty saved, Crystal Palace’s first major trophy secured. Now he comes to his first World Cup as a genuine alternative rather than an emergency option.
James Trafford (Manchester City)
Born into a farming family in Greysouthen, learning to drive on a tractor and teaching his relatives the offside rule, James Trafford’s path to Manchester City and a World Cup squad feels almost improbable.
He played every minute as City won a domestic cup double this season, though his league action dried up after the arrival of Gianluigi Donnarumma. City had sold him to Burnley in 2023, only to buy him back after a staggering 29 clean sheets in 45 games and a PFA Championship Player of the Year award.
Trafford’s England debut came in March’s 1-1 draw with Uruguay, but his reputation was forged earlier, in the 2023 Under-21 European Championship final, when he saved a last-minute penalty to deliver the trophy against Spain. Tuchel knows that sort of nerve is priceless.
Defence: Versatility, Redemption and a 34-Year-Old Latecomer
Reece James (Chelsea)
Reece James arrives at this World Cup with his body a running medical file. Ten hamstring injuries since December 2020. A knee problem that cost him Qatar 2022. Another hamstring issue that ruled him out of Euro 2024. His only major tournament appearance so far? A tight, edgy night against Scotland at Euro 2020.
This time his place looked in danger again after a March hamstring tear, but he fought back in eight weeks to face Liverpool on 9 May. Chelsea’s captain since 2023 and the last survivor of Tuchel’s 2021 Champions League-winning squad, he remains a cornerstone when fit. His lone England goal, a vicious free-kick against Latvia in 2025, was a reminder of the weapon he carries in his right foot.
Ezri Konsa (Aston Villa)
Ezri Konsa’s international record reads like something from another era. Eleven straight wins as an England defender, equalling a mark set in 1910 by Bob Crompton of Blackburn Rovers.
In the Premier League, only Virgil van Dijk has been dribbled past fewer times among defenders who played 30 or more games this season. Konsa has also drawn more fouls than any other Premier League defender since his debut in 2019 – 337 of them. He knows how to disrupt, how to slow games down, how to drag forwards into dark corners.
He scored his first England goal in Serbia last October and called it “a moment I will never forget”. Tuchel clearly hasn’t forgotten either.
Marc Guehi (Manchester City)
Marc Guehi has spent the last two seasons lifting trophies and breaking unusual records.
He captained Crystal Palace to FA Cup and Community Shield success in 2025, then moved to Manchester City and promptly won another FA Cup. That made him only the fourth player ever to win consecutive FA Cup finals with different clubs.
For England, he scored in a 5-0 qualifying win in Serbia and wore the armband in March’s defeat by Japan. Born in Ivory Coast, raised in south London with a minister father and a church choir that he once drove from the drums, Guehi now stands as one of Tuchel’s most trusted organisers.
Tino Livramento (Newcastle United)
Tino Livramento’s season has been a stop-start blur of injuries and positional switches, but his profile screams “Tuchel player”.
He has split his Premier League minutes between right-back (61%) and left-back (39%) for Newcastle, the sort of flexibility his club manager Eddie Howe and his national coach both crave. A thigh injury in April threatened his World Cup hopes, and he started only 14 league games, yet his five caps already include two 5-0 wins – against the Republic of Ireland on debut and Serbia.
Eligible for Portugal through his father and Scotland through his mother, he chose England. Tuchel has chosen him to cover both flanks.
John Stones (Manchester City)
John Stones is both a survivor and a warning.
The last remaining player from Pep Guardiola’s first Manchester City squad, he will leave this summer after 10 seasons, six Premier League titles, a Champions League, three FA Cups, five EFL Cups and a Club World Cup. Yet the numbers behind that glitter are brutal: 294 appearances out of 592 possible, 32 different injuries, 737 days missed. Bernardo Silva, who joined a year later, has played 206 more games.
For England, though, Stones has been ever-present. Only Harry Kane has more tournament appearances. Stones has 26, spread across three World Cups and two European Championships, including starting all seven games in both Euro 2020 and Euro 2024. He scored twice in the 6-1 rout of Panama at the 2018 World Cup. Tuchel knows that when Stones is fit, England defend differently.
Nico O’Reilly (Manchester City)
Nico O’Reilly was supposed to be a No.10. Now he’s the prototype of the modern full-back Tuchel covets.
At Manchester City this season, he has played 77% of his minutes at left-back, 10% on the left wing and 13% in central midfield. He drives into midfield, ghosts into the box, and scores big goals – both strikes in the EFL Cup final win, a start in the FA Cup final, and only Erling Haaland logging more minutes for City.
Scouted at six, tipped as “special” by his mother when he was three months old, and educated at the same Collyhurst primary school as Nobby Stiles, O’Reilly now arrives at his first World Cup as one of the wildcards who could reshape games from deep.
Dan Burn (Newcastle United)
From pushing trollies at Asda to a World Cup.
Dan Burn’s story is the sort of late-career rise international football rarely sees anymore. Released by Newcastle at 11, playing Sunday league before Darlington took a chance, then working his way through Fulham, Yeovil, Birmingham, Wigan and Brighton before finally returning to his boyhood club.
He scored in the 2025 EFL Cup final as Newcastle ended a 70-year wait for a domestic trophy and made his England debut at 32 years and 316 days – older than any debutant since Kevin Davies in 1951. This season he has shifted between left-back and left centre-back, even briefly at right centre-back. Tuchel doesn’t need him to be pretty. He needs him to be unshakeable.
Djed Spence (Tottenham Hotspur)
Djed Spence joins this squad with a broken jaw and a point to prove.
Right-footed but used primarily at left-back for Tottenham this season, he has finally enjoyed his most sustained run of top-flight minutes. Signed by Antonio Conte in 2022, he had to endure three loan spells and a wait of 881 days for his first Spurs start. Left out of the club’s Europa League squad at the start of 2024-25, he forced his way back to feature as a substitute in their final win over Manchester United.
His England debut came last September against Serbia, making him the 80th Spurs player to represent the national team. Tuchel values his ability to flip flanks and survive setbacks.
Jarell Quansah (Bayer Leverkusen)
Jarell Quansah left Liverpool, his boyhood club, last summer in a £35m deal that he called a “no brainer”. It looks smarter by the week.
At Bayer Leverkusen he played 11 Champions League games in his first season, showing the calm, ball-playing profile that had long intrigued England managers. Gareth Southgate, Lee Carsley and Tuchel all called him up before he finally made his debut in November.
He ended Liverpool’s 2025 title-winning season with just 13 league appearances, four of them starts. In Germany, he has become a mainstay, occasionally even filling in at right-back, including in the 2025 EFL Cup final before his move. Earlier this year he was a key figure in England’s Under-21 Euros triumph. Now he steps into the senior spotlight.
Midfield: Running Power, Craft and a Chase for 50 Caps
Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid)
Jude Bellingham doesn’t stride into this World Cup in full flow. For once, he limps a little.
Shoulder surgery disrupted his Real Madrid season, and Tuchel left him out of the games against Wales and Latvia, suggesting he might have done so even if Bellingham had been fully fit. That is a jolt for a player who scored 23 goals and delivered 12 assists in Real’s 2023-24 double-winning campaign, earning La Liga Player of the Season and Champions League Young Player of the Season.
Yet his tournament record for England remains imposing: goals against Iran at the 2022 World Cup, Serbia and Slovakia at Euro 2024, and 15 major tournament appearances before his 23rd birthday. If he reaches 50 caps during this World Cup, he will be the youngest Englishman ever to do it. Tuchel doesn’t need him to be perfect. He needs him to be decisive.
Elliot Anderson (Nottingham Forest)
Nine months into his England career and Elliot Anderson already looks like one of Tuchel’s untouchables.
The Nottingham Forest midfielder has run 403.5km in the Premier League this season, second only to James Garner. He leads the entire division for possession won (302) and tops all midfielders for successful passes (1,999). Those are not just numbers; they are a blueprint for how Tuchel wants England to suffocate opponents.
Anderson came through Newcastle’s academy, played 55 senior games and left only because of Profit and Sustainability pressures. Eddie Howe called it “probably the most reluctant transfer I'll ever do”. Scotland capped him at youth level up to Under-21s. England now reap the rewards.
Morgan Rogers (Aston Villa)
Morgan Rogers has quietly become one of the most relentless players in Europe.
He has started all but one of Aston Villa’s Premier League games over the past two seasons. Only Harvey Barnes has played more games across Europe’s top five leagues this season than Rogers’ 55, and only two players have covered more distance in the Premier League in 2025-26.
He is also the youngest Englishman to score in a major European final since Steven Gerrard in 2001. Under Tuchel, he has featured in all but one England game before the World Cup warm-ups, scoring his first international goal against Wales in October 2025. That strike made him the 34th Aston Villa player to score for England – tying Manchester United for the most from a single club.
Declan Rice (Arsenal)
Declan Rice is England’s constant.
He has started the last 19 major tournament matches for his country and has yet to score in one of them, but goals are almost an irrelevance when you consider his durability and influence. Across the past eight league seasons he has missed only 17 top-flight games. Since joining Arsenal he has played in 157 of a possible 171 matches.
He captained West Ham to a European trophy in the 2023 Conference League final before his record move to Arsenal, where he has become the heartbeat of a title-winning side. Born in Kingston upon Thames, capped three times by Ireland in 2018 before switching allegiance, Rice now carries a different burden: the idea, voiced by Ian Wright, that if England win this World Cup, there should be “a new trophy on top of the Ballon d’Or” for him.
Kobbie Mainoo (Manchester United)
Kobbie Mainoo’s season has been a study in patience and then acceleration.
He didn’t start a league game for Manchester United until 17 January, as Ruben Amorim resisted the clamour. Michael Carrick’s arrival changed everything. Mainoo played 15 of the next 16 matches, was labelled “complete” by his new manager after a standout display against Brentford, and signed a new deal through to 2031.
For England, he already has defining moments. He scored the decisive goal in the 2024 FA Cup final win over Manchester City and started all the knockout games at Euro 2024 as England reached another final. Yet club struggles meant he went from September 2024 to March 2026 without a cap. Now he returns, older in football years, ready to reclaim his place in the heart of Tuchel’s plans.
Jordan Henderson (Brentford)
Jordan Henderson turns 36 on the day England open their World Cup against Croatia. If he plays, he will become the first Englishman to appear at four World Cup finals and the first to feature in seven major tournaments.
His international career now stretches beyond 15 years, a mark only Stanley Matthews, Peter Shilton and Wayne Rooney had previously reached. Yet his 19 major tournament appearances only place him 12th on England’s all-time list, a reminder of how often he has had to fight for his place.
His last England goal came against Senegal in the 2022 World Cup last 16. At Brentford, he has reinvented himself again. Tuchel values his experience in a squad that skews younger and more experimental in other areas.
Eberechi Eze (Arsenal)
Eberechi Eze has built his season on moments that sting one club in particular.
Five of his seven league goals came against Tottenham, the team he nearly joined before opting to return to Arsenal. That haul made him only the second player ever to score four or more in north London derbies in a single season, after Ted Drake in 1934-35.
Eze’s first campaign at the Emirates ended with a Premier League title, a £67.5m move from Crystal Palace fully justified. He had already given Palace their first major trophy with the winner in last season’s FA Cup final. For England, he has scored in back-to-back World Cup qualifiers against Latvia and Serbia and heads to his second major tournament after three substitute appearances at Euro 2024.
Forwards: Records, Redemption Arcs and a Penalty Masterclass
Harry Kane (Bayern Munich)
Harry Kane arrives in North America in the form of his life and still somehow chasing more.
This season he has scored 63 goals in 55 games for club and country. He passed 500 career goals with a strike against Werder Bremen in February, 13 years after his first for Leyton Orient. His tournament record for England already stands at 15 goals – only Jurgen Klinsmann, Gerd Muller, Miroslav Klose and Cristiano Ronaldo have more among Europeans.
He needs three goals 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 and he joins Neymar and Godfrey Chitalu on 79 in the all-time top 10.
From the spot, he is almost unerring: 108 conversions from 121 penalties, including shootouts, with 47 of 50 scored since his miss against France in the 2022 World Cup quarter-final. Tuchel’s England, built on fine margins, could scarcely ask for a better finisher.
Marcus Rashford (Barcelona, on loan)
Marcus Rashford has spent most of his England tournament life watching from the bench.
Eighteen major tournament appearances, but only two starts. Three goals in Qatar – against Iran and twice against Wales – felt like a turning point, yet he has scored just once in his last 13 caps, a 90th-minute penalty in a 5-0 win in Serbia last September.
At Barcelona, on loan from Manchester United, his season has been more nuanced. Fourteen goals, 11 assists, and a free-kick in El Clasico that helped clinch La Liga. Hansi Flick praised his “perfect mentality” after he lost his starting spot to a fit-again Raphinha. Tuchel now taps into a player who has had to adapt, to fight, to accept new roles.
Anthony Gordon (Newcastle United)
Anthony Gordon’s domestic numbers look modest: seven league goals, four from the penalty spot. His Champions League tally tells a different story.
Only Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia have scored more than his 10 Champions League goals this season. He became just the second Englishman, after Kane, to hit double figures in a single Champions League campaign and the second player ever to score four goals in the first half of a Champions League game, doing so against Qarabag.
Gordon’s England major tournament experience so far amounts to two minutes off the bench against Slovenia at Euro 2024. Yet his form in Europe has turned heads. After a minor hip injury in April, Eddie Howe kept him on the bench with “a partial view to the future”, as Bayern Munich links grew louder. That future might accelerate if he catches fire this summer.
Bukayo Saka (Arsenal)
Bukayo Saka has carried Arsenal through lean years and finally into a title. Now he tries to carry that swagger onto the biggest stage again.
On 48 caps at the time of writing, he is on the brink of becoming only the fourth player to reach 50 while at Arsenal, joining Ashley Cole, Tony Adams and David Seaman. He has already passed Cliff Bastin as the club’s top England goalscorer, with a strike against Wales in October 2025.
Saka scored three times at the Qatar World Cup and has barely missed a league game in three seasons, before a slight dip in output – six league goals last season, seven this. Yet he fulfilled his childhood dream by lifting the Premier League trophy this year and delivered a pointed message to doubters: “There was laughing, there was joking, they’re not laughing any more.”
Noni Madueke (Arsenal)
Noni Madueke calls himself a “dual threat” and plays like it.
Comfortable on either flank, he scored his first England goal in a 5-0 win in Serbia last October and drew glowing praise from Tuchel for his pace, directness and dribbling. His journey has already crossed borders: from Tottenham’s academy to PSV after a chance conversation between his father and Ian Maatsen’s dad, then to Chelsea in January 2023.
He helped Chelsea win the Conference League and Club World Cup before moving to Arsenal, where his flair has found a bigger stage. Away from football he talks about a future in fashion, about expression and identity. For now, Tuchel wants that creativity focused on full-backs and penalty areas.
Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa)
Ollie Watkins almost watched this World Cup from his sofa.
Left out of Tuchel’s 35-man squad for March friendlies, he admitted the omission put “fuel in your belly” to prove people wrong. He needed it. He scored just once in his first 19 games of the season in all competitions, a brutal run for a striker of his standards.
Yet he still extended his remarkable streak of hitting at least 10 league goals in 10 straight seasons and became the first Aston Villa player in 66 years to reach 100 goals for the club. For England, his finest hour remains the stoppage-time winner against the Netherlands that sent the team into the Euro 2024 final.
Six goals in 20 caps is a modest return. But Watkins arrives hardened, aware that one chance in a knockout tie can rewrite a career.
Ivan Toney (Al-Ahli)
Few expected to see Ivan Toney’s name on this squad list.
He has spent the last two seasons in Saudi Arabia, scoring 64 goals in 86 games for Al-Ahli, including 32 in 32 league matches this term. He missed the Golden Boot by a single goal after Julian Quinones hit a final-day hat-trick.
Toney’s calling card remains his penalty record. Before leaving England he had missed just one of his last 31 spot-kicks. In Saudi Arabia he scored his first 24 before finally missing in February. Tuchel has barely used him – just three minutes in a defeat by Senegal last June – but in a tournament where shoot-outs lurk around every corner, a specialist like Toney can swing a campaign.
His eight-month ban in 2023 for breaching FA betting rules sits in the background, a reminder of the chaos he has had to overcome. The goals, though, keep coming.
The names are familiar. The stories are not all neat. Some arrive bruised, some in the form of their lives, some clinging to a final shot at history.
Tuchel has built a squad that can press, adapt, and suffer. Whether it can finally end 60 years of waiting is another question entirely – and one that will be answered under the sharpest lights the game can offer.
