• Thomas Tuchel said in June 2025 that “the race is on” to be England's number one, but few expected anything else than Pickford retaining the jersey for a fifth major tournament in a row.
• His 26 major tournament appearances is the joint-second highest for England prior to this World Cup, level with John Stones and behind Harry Kane, who has 29.
• Peter Shilton, with a record 125 caps, is the only man to have played more times in goal for England.
• He surpassed Gordon Banks’ previous mark of seven consecutive clean sheets to set a new England record last year of 10 in a row.
• Against Colombia at the 2018 World Cup he became the first England keeper for 20 years to save a penalty in a major tournament shoot-out.
• Only David Raya (32) has kept more Premier League clean sheets than Pickford’s 23 across the past two seasons.

• Henderson had a four-year wait between his debut and second cap. He kept a clean sheet in the World Cup qualifier in Albania in November last year, which was only his second competitive appearance after a Nations League game with Finland in 2024.
• After making just 48 league starts across four seasons from 2020-21 to 2023-24 he’s missed just one top-flight game across the past two campaigns and kept the third most clean sheets in that time with 22.
• In last year’s FA Cup final, he helped Crystal Palace win their first major trophy.
• He was also in goal for their Community Shield and Conference League triumphs this season.
• Part of the England squad that won the Under-20 World Cup in 2017, though he only played once.
• This is his first World Cup and third major tournament. He didn’t make an appearance at the Euros in 2021 or 2024.

• Trafford played every minute as Manchester City won a domestic cup double, but his only league appearances came in their opening three fixtures in August and their final game of the season.
• After selling him to Burnley in 2023, City re-signed Trafford last summer after he kept 29 clean sheets in 45 games to become the first goalkeeper to be named PFA Championship Player of the Year.
• His England debut came in March as he started the 1-1 draw with Uruguay.
• He was England’s hero in the 2023 Under-21 European Championship final, saving a last-minute penalty as the Young Lions beat Spain to win the competition for the first time in nearly 40 years.
• Born into a farming family in Greysouthen, Cumbria, he says he had to teach them all the offside rule. He learnt how to drive on a tractor and says he’s no idea who or what got him into football.

• James' World Cup place was thrown into doubt by a hamstring injury in March, his tenth such injury since December 2020, but he returned after eight weeks out against Liverpool on 9 May.
• His only major tournament appearance came against Scotland at Euro 2020.
• James missed the 2022 World Cup because of a knee injury and Euro 2024 because of a hamstring issue.
• His sole international goal was a stunning free-kick against Latvia in March 2025.
• Chelsea’s captain since 2023, he’s the only player still at the club from the squad that won the 2021 Champions League under Thomas Tuchel.
• Sixty percent of his Premier League minutes this season were at right back and 40% came in central midfield.
• He's played in Chelsea’s last four FA Cup finals, which have all ended in defeat.

• Konsa played the second-most minutes (555) of any outfield England player during the World Cup qualifiers, behind Harry Kane. It culminated in him equalling the record of 11 straight wins by an England defender, set by Bob Crompton of Blackburn Rovers in 1910.
• His passing accuracy of 95.5% was the highest of any top-flight player this season (minimum 500 passes).
• Of defenders to play 30 or more Premier League games this season, only Virgil van Dijk was dribbled past on fewer occasions than Konsa’s four.
• Drawn by far the most fouls (337) of any PL defender since his debut in October 2019.
• Described scoring his first goal for England in Serbia last October as a “moment I will never forget”.
• He featured three times at Euro 2024 and started v Switzerland in the quarter-finals.

• Guehi captained Crystal Palace to FA Cup and Community Shield success in 2025 before winning the FA Cup with Manchester City this season.
• He’s only the fourth player to play for different winning teams in consecutive FA Cup finals after Arthur Kinnaird (1878 and 1979), Brian Talbot (1978 and 1979) and Olivier Giroud (2017 and 2018).
• His 32 shots this season was the most by a Premier League defender.
• Scored his first goal for England in a 5-0 World Cup qualifying win away in Serbia last October.
• Guehi captained England for the first time in March’s defeat by Japan.
• Born in the Ivory Coast, the family moved to the UK when he was one. Deeply religious, his father was a minister in a local church in south London, while Marc played drums in the choir.

• Replaced Tino Livramento after the Newcastle full-back was ruled out with a calf injury.
• Chalobah's only other cap came as he played the full 90 minutes of Thomas Tuchel’s first defeat as England coach in a 3-1 loss to Senegal in June 2025.
• Tuchel also gave him his Chelsea debut in 2021.
• Marc Cucurella was the only Blues defender to play more minutes for the club across all competitions than Chalobah did in 2025-26, although he didn't play in the FA Cup final.
• Joined the Blues aged eight while his brother Nathaniel was still at the club. He was also capped by England, playing v Spain in 2018.
• Born in Sierra Leone, Trevoh had loan spells at Ipswich, Huddersfield, Lorient & Crystal Palace.e.
• Chalobah's inclusion marks the completion of a dream - on the day of the World Cup final in 2018, aged 19, he tweeted "One day #Believe".

• Stones is named in a third straight World Cup squad despite only managing 13 starts this season in all competitions.
• The last remaining player from Pep Guardiola’s first Man City squad departs this summer after 10 seasons, six league titles, a Champions League, three FA Cups, five EFL Cups and the Club World Cup.
• He’s only played 295 of Man City’s 593 games in all competitions since he signed in 2016-17 and has missed 737 days due to 32 different injuries. Team-mate Bernardo Silva has played 206 matches more than Stones despite joining the club a year later.
• Only Harry Kane has played more than his 26 tournament matches for England: 12 at a World Cup and all seven games in each of the Three Lions’ run to the Euro 2020 and 2024 finals.
• Two of his three international goals came in the 6-1 win over Panama in the 2018 World Cup group stage.

• O'Reilly's favoured position has always been as a No.10 but his emergence as a marauding left-back who can defend, step into midfield and ghost into the box to chip in with goals, has been key for Manchester City.
• He’s played 77% of his Premier League minutes this season at left-back, 10% at left wing and 13% in central midfield.
• Having only started six league games prior to this season, only Erling Haaland has played more minutes for City this season.
• He scored both goals in the EFL Cup final win and started the FA Cup final.
• Mum Holli recalls saying, with Nico sitting on her knee at three months old, that “he’s special – I just knew he’d go far.” He was scouted by City when he was six.
• He went to the same Collyhurst primary school, St Patrick’s, as 1966 World Cup winner Nobby Stiles.

• Dan Burn has come a long way from collecting trollies at Asda and earning £55 playing for Darlington’s reserves.
• From Blyth in Northumberland, he had a season ticket at St James’ Park but was released from their Centre of Excellence as an 11-year-old and ended up playing in Sunday league until Darlington picked him up.
• He then played for Fulham, Yeovil, Birmingham and Wigan before joining Brighton in the top flight.
• After making a dream move to his boyhood club, Burn earned a place in Newcastle folklore with one of their goals in the 2025 EFL Cup final as they won a first domestic trophy for 70 years.
• The only England debutant older than Dan Burn (32 years and 316 days) since 1951 was Kevin Davies (33 years and 200 days).
• This season he’s played 44% of his Premier League minutes at left-back and 56% at left centre-back.

• Spence is selected despite breaking his jaw three days before the squad was announced.
• While he is right-footed, he has played primarily at left-back this season and that versatility is likely to have influenced Thomas Tuchel’s decision-making. While not a guaranteed starter for Spurs, he played more minutes this term than in any other season of his top-flight career.
• Became the 80th Spurs player to win an England cap with his debut as a sub against Serbia in September.
• Signed by Antonio Conte in July 2022, he made his Spurs debut the following month, but it was 881 days – and three loan spells – before he made his first start for the club.
• Was omitted from Spurs’ Europa League squad at the start of the 2024-25 season but eventually played his way into contention and featured as a substitute in the win over Manchester United in the final.

• Quansah's first season in Germany with Bayer Leverkusen saw him play in 11 Champions League games.
• ​​​​Despite Liverpool being his boyhood club, who he first joined aged five, he said it was a “no brainer” to leave last summer in a deal worth £35m. In total, he played 58 times for the Reds.
• He ended Liverpool's title-winning season in 2025 having played in only 13 league games, four of which were starts.
• A ball-playing centre-half, he was occasionally used at right-back, including in the 2025 EFL Cup final.
• He had been selected by three separate England bosses in Gareth Southgate, Lee Carsley and Thomas Tuchel in five different squads before he finally made his debut in November last year.
• Earlier in 2025, he had been a key figure in England’s triumph at the U21 Euros.

• Bellingham heads to the World Cup still searching for top form after an indifferent season with Real Madrid.
• He was left out for the games with Wales and Latvia not long after returning from shoulder surgery but Thomas Tuchel said he might have excluded him even if he had been 100% fit.
• He scored against Iran at the 2022 World Cup and against Serbia and Slovakia at Euro 2024.
• Despite only turning 23 during this World Cup, he’s already played in 15 major tournament games.
• Just shy of his half-century, Bellingham would be the youngest Englishman to reach 50 caps.
• In the 2023-24 season, he scored 23 goals and provided 12 assists as Real won La Liga and the Champions League. He was named La Liga Player of the Season and Uefa Champions League Young Player of the Season.

• Anderson may have fewer than 10 caps and be only nine months into his international career but is a surefire starter for Thomas Tuchel, who has described him as “an elite football player with the right attitude and talent.”
• Only James Garner ran further than his 411km in the top flight this campaign.
• Led all players in the Premier League this season for most touches (3,300), duels won (297) and possession won (306).
• His tally of possession won was 94 higher than any other player in Europe’s top five leagues.
• Anderson joined Newcastle aged eight and played 55 senior games before switching to Forest in the summer of 2024 because of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules. “It was probably the most reluctant transfer I'll ever do,” said Newcastle boss Eddie Howe.
• He played for Scotland’s youth teams up to, and including, the Under-21 side.

• His perfect run of starting every Premier League game this season ended on the final day.
• Since the start of 2024-25, only Federico Valverde, David Raya and Virgil van Dijk amongst players in Europe’s top five leagues have played more minutes than Rogers in all competitions.
• Covered the fourth furthest distance (400.3km) of any player in the Premier League this season.
• With a goal in the Europa League final he became the youngest Englishman to score in a major European final since Steven Gerrard in 2001.
• He has played in all but one England game under Thomas Tuchel.
• His only international goal to date came against Wales in October 2025. It made him the 34th Aston Villa player to score for England - the joint-most from one club along with Manchester United.

• Rice has started England’s last 19 major tournament matches prior to this World Cup, although he is yet to score.
• Rice’s astonishing durability has meant he has only missed 18 top-flight league games in the past eight seasons and just five since signing for Arsenal.
• In total he’s played in 158 out of 173 possible matches for the Gunners.
• He missed out on the award for Football Writers’ Player of the Year but former England and Arsenal striker Ian Wright says: “If England win the World Cup, there should be a new trophy on top of the Ballon d’Or for Declan Rice.”
• His 17 big chances created in the top flight this season was only surpassed by Bruno Fernandes and Rayan Cherki.
• Born in Kingston upon Thames, he qualified for Ireland through his paternal grandparents and played in three friendlies in 2018 before switching allegiance.

• Mainoo didn’t start a league game this season until 17 January as manager Ruben Amorim resisted calls to pick him. However, once Michael Carrick was appointed, he played in 16 of 17 matches.
• Carrick described the midfielder as “complete” after a display against Brentford in late April and just days later, Mainoo signed a new deal taking him through until June 2031.  
• The Stockport-born, boyhood United fan made his hundredth appearance for the Red Devils in May.
• He scored what turned out to be the decisive goal in the 2024 FA Cup final win over Man City.
• He started all of the knockout games at Euro 2024, playing a starring role as England reached the final.
• But due to his United struggles, he went from September 2024 to March 2026 without a cap.

• The veteran midfielder, who turns 36 on the day of England’s opening match with Croatia, could become the first Englishman to play at four World Cup finals.
• He could also become the first Englishman to play in seven major championships (four World Cups and three European Championships), breaking a tie with Sol Campbell, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney and equalling Lucy Bronze’s overall England record.
• His appearance against Uruguay in March made him only the fourth Englishman to have an England career spanning longer than 15 years, emulating Stanley Matthews (22 years), Peter Shilton (19 years) and Wayne Rooney (15 years)
• Despite this, his 19 major tournament matches only ranks him twelfth on England’s all-time list.
• The last of his three international goals came against Senegal in the last 16 at the 2022 World Cup.

• Five of Eze's seven league goals this season were scored against Tottenham, who he came close to joining before opting for a return to his boyhood club Arsenal.
• It made him only the second player to score four or more in north London derbies in a season after Ted Drake for Arsenal in 1934-35.
• Lifted the Premier League title following his £67.5m move from Crystal Palace.
• But he was one of two Arsenal players to miss a penalty in the Champions League final shootout against PSG.
• Scored Palace’s winner as they lifted their first major trophy in last season’s FA Cup final.
• His 14 Premier League goals from outside the box since the start of 2022-23 is the joint most with Man City's Phil Foden.
• Scored in back-to-back World Cup qualifiers against Latvia and Serbia.
• At his second major tournament after he appeared three times off the bench at Euro 2024.

• This has been the most prolific season of Kane's career, scoring 67 goals in 58 games for club and country.
• His 61 club goals tied Cristiano Ronaldo's career-best return for a season.
• Having scored his first goal for Leyton Orient in 2011, he notched his 500^th career goal on his 743rd appearance for club and country in February.
• Could become first England player to score at five different major tournaments.
• In his career, Kane’s scored 109 out of 122 penalties (89% conversion rate, including shootouts). Since he missed against France in the World Cup quarter-final in 2022 his record is an incredible 48 of 51.
• The only Europeans to score more than Kane's 15 at major tournaments are Jurgen Klinsmann (16), Gerd Muller (18), Miroslav Klose (19) and Cristiano Ronaldo (22).
• Needs three goals to pass Gary Lineker’s England record of 10 World Cup goals.
• His strike against New Zealand saw him go joint-tenth in the all-time list of international goalscorers. His tally of 79 is level with Brazil’s Neymar and Zambia’s Godfrey Chitalu.

• He has played in 18 major tournament matches and could move into the all-time England top 10 with David Beckham (20), Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard (both 21) ahead of him.
• Scored three times at the Qatar World Cup with a goal against Iran and a brace against Wales.
• Only two of his 18 appearances at a World Cup or Euros have been a start.
• His only goal in his last 13 caps was a 90^th-minute penalty in a 5-0 win in Serbia last September.
• On loan from Manchester United, Rashford played in 49 games in all competitions for Barcelona this season, scoring 14 times and making 11 assists.
• His free-kick in May’s El Clasico helped seal the La Liga title for Barcelona.
• Barca manager Hansi Flick praised his “perfect mentality” after he lost his starting spot to a fit-again Raphinha.

• Gordon said he believed he would play for Barcelona since he was “three years of age” as he sealed a £69.3m move from Newcastle ahead of the World Cup.
• His domestic performances for the Magpies (seven goals, four of which were penalties) had been at odds with his displays in the Champions League in which only Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia scored more than his 10 this campaign.
• It made him just the second Englishman after Kane to reach double figures for Champions League goals in a season.
• Against Qarabag he became only the second player in Champions League history to score four goals in the first half of a game.
• Just three months after his England debut, he was included in the squad for Euro 2024, but his major tournament experience is limited to a two-minute cameo off the bench against Slovenia.

• On 49 caps, Saka is set to become the fourth man to win 50 while an Arsenal player, joining Ashley Cole, Tony Adams and David Seaman.

• He became the Gunners’ outright record goalscorer for England when he overtook Cliff Bastin’s previous mark of 12 with a goal against Wales in October 2025.
• He was the last Englishman to score a hat-trick, doing so against North Macedonia in June 2023.
• Scored three goals in four games at the Qatar World Cup with two against Iran and one against Senegal.
• He only missed a total of three league matches across the 2021-22 to 2023-24 campaigns, scoring 11, 14 and 16 goals. But he scored just six top-flight goals last season and seven in this.
• Saka achieved his dream of a league title with his boyhood club this season: “There was laughing, there was joking, they’re not laughing any more,” he said of Arsenal’s critics.

• Madueke describes himself as a “dual threat” who can play on the left wing as well as his favoured right.
• He scored his first England goal in the 5-0 away win in Serbia in October and was lavished with praise by Tuchel who said: “He’s fast, he’s direct and he likes to dribble. That’s what we want from him.”
• He started at Tottenham, but a chat between his father and the dad of then-PSV defender Ian Maatsen at an academy tournament put the wheels in motion for him to move to Holland.
• After winning a Dutch Cup with PSV, he moved to Chelsea in January 2023 and helped the Blues claim the Conference League and Club World Cup last season.
• He hopes to go into the fashion industry at the end of his career: “Football, music, fashion, it’s all connected for me. It’s how I express who I am, and each one feeds into the other in some way.”  

• Watkins said being left out of Thomas Tuchel’s 35-man squad for March’s friendlies provided “fuel in your belly to prove what you can do and prove people wrong”.
• And his tally of 12 goals in 13 games since that squad was announced was the most by any top-flight player in all competitions during that time.
• He had only scored once in his first 19 games of the season in all competitions.
• Despite a campaign that he admits has “not been the most plain sailing", Watkins continued his impressive streak of having reached 10 or more league goals in a season for 10 straight campaigns.
• In April, he became the first Villa player for 66 years to reach 100 goals for the club.
• His finest moment in an England shirt came when he scored a stoppage-time winner against the Netherlands to put England into the Euro 2024 final.
• He has only won a total of 22 caps since his 2021 debut. Scored his seventh goal v Costa Rica.

• Few people had Saudi-based Toney on their predicted squad list, but after 32 goals in 32 league games for Al-Ahli this season, he makes the plane.
• Missed out on the Saudi League’s Golden Boot by a single goal on the final day, but his 55 goals in 62 league games across his two seasons is the most by any player and two more than Cristiano Ronaldo.
• Twenty of those 62 goals were penalties and he has an impressive career record of 59 from 63 from the spot.
• His only cap under Thomas Tuchel was a three-minute cameo in the defeat by Senegal last June.
• “You can't be running around crazy because you otherwise run out of steam," he says of playing in heat. "You have to be more strategic with your runs.”
• In 2023, the former Brentford man was banned from football for eight months after he broke the FA’s betting rules.

2026 World Cup team guide

2026 World Cup stadium guide