Harry Maguire's Disappointment Over World Cup Snub
Harry Maguire cuts a relaxed figure these days, but the wound is still fresh.
One of Manchester United’s most reliable performers in the 2025/26 run-in, the 33-year-old centre-back expected his name to be inked into England’s World Cup squad list. Instead, Thomas Tuchel drew a line through it.
Dan Burn, Jarell Quansah, Ezri Konsa, Marc Guehi and John Stones boarded the plane. Maguire stayed home.
On The Rest is Football with Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Joe Cole, the defender finally laid out exactly how it unfolded – and why the snub hurt so much.
“It was a surprise… I was really disappointed”
Maguire didn’t dress it up.
“No, it was a surprise at the time,” he said on the Netflix show. “I said straight away that it was a surprise. I was really disappointed. I thought I did enough to be in the squad and I thought I could have helped the lads out there.”
He had a case. After a turbulent spell earlier in his United career, Maguire had forced his way back into the starting XI and become one of the club’s standout performers as they chased a strong finish to the season. Form, experience, tournament pedigree – all pointed towards a place in Tuchel’s 26.
Maguire believed he still had a role to play, not only in the dressing room but on the pitch.
“I thought I would have still had a part to play on the pitch and off the pitch as well,” he said. “So no, I was disappointed at the time, but the manager’s made a decision and he’s gone with his 26 and it’s part of football and I’ll move on quick from here.”
The words are calm. The message is clear: he felt he’d earned it.
Tuchel’s FaceTime call – “quite an awkward call…”
Rejection at this level rarely comes via a text message or a delegated assistant. Tuchel chose something more direct.
“He speaks to everyone, to be fair,” Maguire revealed. “So he FaceTimes everyone… Yeah, it’s quite an awkward call… I think he FaceTimes everybody. It’s quite a unique way to do it. It makes it harder probably for himself to see our reactions and things like that.”
No hiding place. Just the England manager, a phone screen and the news every senior international dreads.
Maguire listened as Tuchel tried to explain a decision that, by his own admission, didn’t have a clear footballing “excuse”.
On the reasoning, Maguire continued: “He really said that he can’t really give me an excuse, but I think he said that he’s gone with the four lads that he got through the qualifying in the autumn, in the autumn camps where he felt like they did well during them six games.
“But he did say that he can’t really give me an excuse. But listen, that’s football. It was tough to take.”
The logic was continuity. Tuchel stuck by the defenders who had carried England through the autumn qualifiers, even if Maguire’s club form roared back at just the wrong time for him.
For a player who has been a pillar for England at major tournaments, that explanation landed heavily.
A World Cup that might not come again
The hurt runs deeper than a single tournament. It’s about time.
“I was really disappointed. I wanted to go to the World Cup and play. I’m 33 now, so 37 at the next World Cup. It looks far away,” Maguire admitted.
Those numbers matter. At 37, a centre-back can still operate at the top level, but nothing is guaranteed – not form, not fitness, not the manager’s taste.
Maguire wasn’t banging the table demanding to start every game. He just wanted to be there.
“So I wanted to go, not just play, but like I told the manager, I wasn’t demanding to go and start the games. I’d have been happy to play one minute as long as I was there with the lads. So no, it was disappointing.”
That line tells its own story. For all the criticism he has taken over the years, Maguire has rarely ducked responsibility for club or country. This time, he wanted responsibility in any form – a starter, a squad voice, a late-game defender to see out a lead.
Tuchel went another way.
Maguire says he will “move on quickly”. The reality is he may have to move on faster than the World Cup cycle allows. The next four years will decide whether this was a painful detour or the moment his England story quietly closed.
