England’s 26 for 2026: Tuchel’s Bid 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. Two European Championship finals lost. A World Cup semi-final slipped away.
Now it’s Thomas Tuchel’s turn to carry the weight.
The German has ripped through qualifying, winning eight games without conceding – a first for any European nation. Nine wins in his first 10 matches, nine clean sheets, a 90% win rate in 2025. The numbers scream control. The March friendlies against Uruguay and Japan whispered doubt.
This 26-man squad is his answer.
Tuchel: The Architect with a Scarred CV and a Clean-Sheet Obsession
Tuchel’s England look like his best club sides: structured, intense, unforgiving without the ball. The clean-sheet record in qualifying underlines it. He has matched Glenn Hoddle’s early win record and gone past him for defensive parsimony.
His path to this point is well known. Cups with Borussia Dortmund, a domestic treble at Paris St-Germain, a Champions League and Club World Cup with Chelsea, a Bundesliga title at Bayern Munich. Just as notable: the setbacks, the sackings, the short playing career ended by injury at 24, the nights waiting tables at “Radio Bar” in Stuttgart.
He has lived football from the bottom up. Now he has the deepest England squad of the modern era and a single, ruthless brief: finish the job Southgate couldn’t.
Goalkeepers – Pickford’s Gloves, Trafford’s Future, Henderson’s Fight
Jordan Pickford (Everton, 82 caps)
Tuchel called the battle for the No.1 shirt “on” last year. It never really was.
Pickford walks into a fifth straight major tournament as England’s goalkeeper. His 26 tournament appearances already trail only Harry Kane, and he has Peter Shilton’s long shadow behind him as the only man with more England games in goal.
He owns the national clean-sheet record – 10 in a row, surpassing Gordon Banks – and remains the only England keeper since 1998 to save a penalty in a major tournament shoot-out, against Colombia in 2018.
Domestic form backs the reputation. Over the past two Premier League seasons, only David Raya has more clean sheets than Pickford’s 23. The technique is refined, the temperament hardened. He is still the man Tuchel trusts when everything is on the line.
Dean Henderson (Crystal Palace, 4 caps)
Four years between his first and second caps. A career that has bounced between promise and frustration. Now, finally, momentum.
Henderson’s clean sheet in Albania during qualifying last November was only his second competitive England appearance, but his club numbers tell the story. After just 48 league starts in four seasons from 2020-21 to 2023-24, he has barely missed a game in the last two campaigns and ranks third for Premier League clean sheets in that time with 22.
Last season’s FA Cup final turned him into a cult figure: a VAR red-card scare survived, a penalty saved, a string of big stops as Crystal Palace lifted their first major trophy.
He was part of England’s Under-20 World Cup-winning squad in 2017, though he barely featured. This is his first World Cup as a senior player. At 29, he finally feels present rather than potential.
James Trafford (Manchester City, 1 cap)
Born on a farm in Cumbria, learned to drive on a tractor, had to explain the offside rule to his family. Now he’s Manchester City’s cup specialist and England’s coming man in goal.
Trafford played every minute as City completed a domestic cup double, though his league action stopped after three August games once Gianluigi Donnarumma arrived. City had already sold him to Burnley in 2023, then paid to bring him back after 29 clean sheets in 45 games and a PFA Championship Player of the Year award – a first for a goalkeeper.
His senior England debut came in March in a 1-1 draw with Uruguay, but his defining moment in an England shirt remains the 2023 Under-21 European Championship final, when he saved a last-minute penalty to secure the trophy against Spain.
He is the future of the position. For now, he watches Pickford and waits.
Defenders – Versatility, Scar Tissue and a Giant from Asda
Reece James (Chelsea, 22 caps)
England have spent four years waiting for the version of Reece James who once dominated the right flank for club and country. They might finally be about to see him again.
His World Cup spot looked in real danger after yet another hamstring injury in March – his tenth since December 2020. He returned after eight weeks, easing back into action against Liverpool on 9 May.
His tournament history is surprisingly thin: just one appearance, against Scotland at Euro 2020. A knee injury cost him the 2022 World Cup, a hamstring issue ruled him out of Euro 2024. His only England goal, a vicious free-kick against Latvia in March 2025, showed what he can still offer.
Now Chelsea’s captain and the last survivor of Tuchel’s 2021 Champions League-winning squad, James has played in four consecutive FA Cup finals, losing them all. This World Cup is a chance to rewrite his big-stage story.
Ezri Konsa (Aston Villa, 18 caps)
Konsa quietly became one of Tuchel’s most trusted lieutenants during qualifying. He played more minutes than any England outfielder bar Harry Kane and matched a record that had stood since 1910 – 11 straight wins as an England defender, equalling Bob Crompton.
In the Premier League, he is a defender attackers simply don’t get past. Among those to play 30 or more league games this season, only Virgil van Dijk has been dribbled past fewer times. Konsa has been beaten just four times.
He draws fouls like a forward, too – 337 since his Premier League debut in 2019, the most of any defender. He called his first England goal, scored in Serbia last October, “a moment I will never forget”. He featured at Euro 2024, starting the quarter-final against Switzerland.
He now arrives as more than a squad piece. He is part of England’s defensive core.
Marc Guehi (Manchester City, 27 caps)
Guehi’s rise has been relentless. FA Cup and Community Shield as captain of Crystal Palace in 2025, another FA Cup with Manchester City this season. Two different winners in consecutive FA Cup finals – a feat previously achieved only by Arthur Kinnaird, Brian Talbot and Olivier Giroud.
He scored his first England goal in a 5-0 qualifying win away to Serbia and captained his country for the first time in March’s defeat by Japan. Born in Ivory Coast and raised in south London, with a minister father and his own role as drummer in the church choir, he carries a quiet authority.
Tuchel likes defenders who can play, lead and suffer. Guehi does all three.
Tino Livramento (Newcastle United, 5 caps)
Livramento has made a career out of being where managers need him most. This season, 61% of his Premier League minutes came at right-back, 39% at left-back for Newcastle – a flexibility Tuchel values highly.
Two of his first three England caps came in 5-0 wins, against the Republic of Ireland and Serbia, hinting at the attacking thrust he can add. His place was in jeopardy after a thigh injury against Bournemouth in April and an injury-hit season that brought just 14 league starts.
Chelsea academy product, Southampton profit machine, now Newcastle’s two-footed full-back. Eligible for Portugal through his father and Scotland through his mother, he chose England. Tuchel has chosen him back.
John Stones (Manchester City, 87 caps)
Stones is the veteran of England’s defence, even as his body continues to fight him. He has made only eight starts for Manchester City this season but still heads to a third straight World Cup.
The last remaining player from Pep Guardiola’s first City squad, he leaves this summer after 10 seasons, six league titles, a Champions League, three FA Cups, five EFL Cups and a Club World Cup. Yet the numbers reveal the struggle: 294 appearances out of 592 possible games, 737 days lost to 32 different injuries. Bernardo Silva has played 206 more matches for City despite arriving a year later.
For England, he has been a constant. Only Kane has more tournament appearances than his 26. He played 12 World Cup matches and started every game in both Euro 2020 and Euro 2024 as England reached back-to-back finals. Two of his three international goals came in the 6-1 demolition of Panama in 2018.
If this is his last World Cup, he goes into it as both symbol and survivor.
Nico O’Reilly (Manchester City, 3 caps)
On paper, O’Reilly is a No.10. On grass, he’s become something far more modern – a left-back who defends, steps into midfield and glides into the box like an extra forward.
This season, 77% of his Premier League minutes came at left-back, with 10% on the wing and 13% in central midfield. Only Erling Haaland has played more league minutes for City. O’Reilly scored both goals in the EFL Cup final and started the FA Cup final, making himself impossible to ignore.
Scouted by City at six, tipped as “special” by his mum Holli when he was three months old, he followed the same primary school path as World Cup winner Nobby Stiles at St Patrick’s in Collyhurst.
Now he arrives in the senior squad as Tuchel’s tactical wildcard on the left.
Dan Burn (Newcastle United, 6 caps)
From pushing trollies at Asda to a World Cup. Dan Burn’s story still sounds improbable, even as he stands 6ft 7in tall in an England tracksuit.
Released by Newcastle’s academy at 11, he drifted into Sunday league before Darlington picked him up. Fulham, Yeovil, Birmingham, Wigan, Brighton – the route was long and unglamorous. Only in his thirties did he finally return to his boyhood club and write himself into folklore with a goal in the 2025 EFL Cup final, ending Newcastle’s 70-year wait for a domestic trophy.
He became one of England’s oldest debutants since 1951, winning his first cap at 32 years and 316 days, older than everyone bar Kevin Davies in the modern era. This season he has been used across the back line: 38% of his minutes at left-back, 61% at left centre-back, a sliver at right centre-back.
He brings height, heart and a sense that nothing is impossible.
Djed Spence (Tottenham Hotspur, 4 caps)
Spence enters the World Cup having broken his jaw three days before the squad announcement. Tuchel picked him anyway. That says plenty.
Right-footed but primarily used at left-back this season, his adaptability has finally forced a breakthrough at Spurs. Signed in 2022, he waited 881 days and three loan spells for his first start. He was even left out of the Europa League squad at the start of 2024-25 before fighting his way into contention and coming off the bench in the final win over Manchester United.
He became the 80th Spurs player to win an England cap when he debuted against Serbia in September. Now he heads to his first World Cup as a flexible full-back option on both sides.
Jarell Quansah (Bayer Leverkusen, 1 cap)
Quansah’s first season at Bayer Leverkusen brought 11 Champions League appearances and a clear message: he had outgrown the fringes at Liverpool.
He joined his boyhood club at five, left at 23 in a £35m deal after playing 58 times and featuring in only 13 league games of their 2025 title-winning campaign. A composed, ball-playing centre-half who can step out to right-back – as he did in the 2025 EFL Cup final – he has the profile Tuchel covets.
Three England managers – Gareth Southgate, Lee Carsley and Tuchel – selected him in five squads before he finally made his debut last November. Earlier in 2025, he was a key figure in England’s Under-21 European Championship triumph.
Now he steps up to the senior stage with the same calm that has defined his club season.
Midfield – Rice’s Iron Grip, Bellingham’s Search, Mainoo’s Second Act
Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid, 46 caps)
Bellingham arrives at this World Cup in a strange place. The face of a generation, but not quite in full flow.
Shoulder surgery disrupted his season at Real Madrid and Tuchel left him out of games against Wales and Latvia, saying he might have done so even if Bellingham had been fully fit. For a player who scored against Iran at the 2022 World Cup and twice at Euro 2024, against Serbia and Slovakia, it’s a jolt.
Still, the numbers remain staggering. He has already played 15 major tournament matches for England and will become the youngest Englishman to reach 50 caps if he gets there during this tournament. In 2023-24 he scored 23 and assisted 12 as Real won La Liga and the Champions League, taking both La Liga Player of the Season and the Champions League Young Player of the Season awards.
England need that version now – the one who bends big nights to his will.
Elliot Anderson (Nottingham Forest, 7 caps)
Nine months into his England career, Anderson is already one of Tuchel’s non-negotiables. The head coach has called him “an elite football player with the right attitude and talent”. The data agrees.
He 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 leads all midfielders for successful passes (1,999). He is the engine and the metronome.
Raised in Newcastle’s system from eight, he played 55 senior games before a reluctant sale to Nottingham Forest in 2024 to satisfy Profit and Sustainability Rules. Eddie Howe admitted it was “probably the most reluctant transfer I’ll ever do.”
He represented Scotland at youth level up to Under-21. England now reap the benefits of that tug-of-war.
Morgan Rogers (Aston Villa, 13 caps)
Rogers has been almost ever-present for Aston Villa, starting all but one league game over the last two seasons. This year, only Newcastle’s Harvey Barnes has played more matches in Europe’s top five leagues than Rogers’ 55, and he has covered the third-most distance in the Premier League in 2025-26.
For England, he has featured in all but one game under Tuchel before the warm-ups. His only international goal so far came against Wales in October 2025, making him the 34th Aston Villa player to score for England – a joint record for one club, alongside Manchester United.
He is also the youngest Englishman since Steven Gerrard in 2001 to score in a major European final. Tuchel sees a tireless runner who can stretch games and knit them together.
Declan Rice (Arsenal, 72 caps)
If Tuchel’s England have a heartbeat, it’s Rice. He has started England’s last 19 major tournament matches and still waits for his first goal, but that misses the point.
His durability is outrageous. Across the past eight league seasons he has missed only 17 games. Since joining Arsenal, he has sat out just four, playing 157 of 171 possible matches. He narrowly missed out on the Football Writers’ Player of the Year award, but the respect is clear. 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 Declan Rice.”
A West Ham academy leader turned European trophy-winning captain in the 2023 Conference League final, he left for Arsenal and immediately became the spine of a title-winning side. Born in Kingston upon Thames, he played three friendlies for Ireland in 2018 before switching allegiance.
He now stands as the anchor of England’s most talented midfield in decades.
Kobbie Mainoo (Manchester United, 12 caps)
Mainoo’s season split in two. Under Ruben Amorim at Manchester United, he couldn’t get a league start until 17 January. Under Michael Carrick, he became indispensable, starting 15 of 16 matches.
Carrick called him “complete” after a standout display against Brentford in late April. Within days, Mainoo signed a new contract running to June 2031 and reached 100 appearances for his boyhood club in May.
For England, he was a star of Euro 2024, starting every knockout game as the Three Lions reached the final. Then came a long international gap, from September 2024 to March 2026, as his club minutes dried up.
He also carries a Wembley moment: the decisive goal in the 2024 FA Cup final win over Manchester City. Now he returns to the national side as the player he looked destined to become.
Jordan Henderson (Brentford, 89 caps)
Henderson turns 36 on the day England open against Croatia and could become the first Englishman to appear at four World Cup finals. One more milestone in a career built on longevity and relentlessness.
He is also poised to become the first Englishman to play in seven major tournaments – four World Cups, three European Championships – moving past Sol Campbell, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney. His appearance against Uruguay in March made him only the fourth player to have an England career spanning more than 15 years, alongside Stanley Matthews, Peter Shilton and Rooney.
His 19 major tournament matches rank just 12th on England’s all-time list, but his influence has stretched far beyond raw numbers. The last of his three international goals came against Senegal at the 2022 World Cup.
Now at Brentford, he offers Tuchel leadership, experience and a bridge between eras.
Eberechi Eze (Arsenal, 16 caps)
Eze’s first Arsenal season will live forever in north London. Premier League title, £67.5m fee justified, and five of his seven league goals scored against Tottenham – the club he almost joined.
He became only the second player, after Ted Drake in 1934-35, to score four or more goals in the north London derby in a single season. Before that, he had already written himself into Crystal Palace history with the winner in last season’s FA Cup final, their first major trophy.
For England, he scored in back-to-back World Cup qualifiers against Latvia and Serbia last autumn and appeared three times off the bench at Euro 2024.
He arrives in America as a champion, a derby destroyer and a creative wildcard who can break games open from the bench or from the start.
Forwards – Kane’s Record Chase, Rashford’s Reboot, Gordon’s European Fire
Harry Kane (Bayern Munich, 112 caps)
This has been the most prolific season of Harry Kane’s career: 63 goals in 55 games for club and country. At 32, he is still accelerating.
He scored his first professional goal for Leyton Orient in 2011. This February, against Werder Bremen, he hit his 500th career goal. His penalty record is extraordinary – 108 scored from 121 attempts, including shootouts. Since that miss against France in the 2022 World Cup quarter-final, he has converted 47 of his last 50.
His 15 goals at major tournaments leave him behind only Jurgen Klinsmann (16), Gerd Muller (18), Miroslav Klose (19) and Cristiano Ronaldo (22) among Europeans. He needs three to pass Gary Lineker’s England record of 10 World Cup goals.
His strike against Albania in November took him past Pelé’s 77 international goals. One more and he joins the all-time top 10, level with Neymar and Godfrey Chitalu on 79.
He is chasing history while carrying a nation.
Marcus Rashford (Barcelona, on loan, 70 caps)
Rashford’s international career has been defined by cameos and flashes. He has played 18 major tournament matches but started only two. He scored three times at the Qatar World Cup – against Iran and twice against Wales – yet has just one goal in his last 13 caps, a 90th-minute penalty in a 5-0 win in Serbia last September.
This season, on loan at Barcelona, he has rebuilt his rhythm: 48 games, 14 goals, 11 assists. His free-kick in May’s El Clasico helped seal La Liga, prompting Hansi Flick to praise his “perfect mentality” after he lost his starting spot to a fit-again Raphinha.
Rashford sits within reach of England’s all-time tournament appearance top 10, with David Beckham (20), Rooney and Gerrard (21) just ahead. One strong World Cup and he joins that company.
Tuchel will hope the Barcelona version turns up – direct, decisive, ruthless in transition.
Anthony Gordon (Newcastle United, 17 caps)
Domestically, Gordon’s numbers have been modest – seven league goals, four from the penalty spot. In Europe, he has been something else entirely.
Only Kylian Mbappé, Harry Kane and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia have scored more Champions League goals than his 10 this season. He became just the second Englishman, after Kane, to reach double figures in a Champions League campaign and the second player in the competition’s history to score four goals in the first half of a game, against Qarabag.
His major tournament experience is limited to a two-minute cameo at Euro 2024 against Slovenia. Yet his stock has soared. After returning from a minor hip injury in April, Eddie Howe often left him on the bench, admitting it was with “a partial view to the future” amid strong links to Bayern Munich.
For Tuchel, that future might start now.
Bukayo Saka (Arsenal, 48 caps)
Saka finally has the Premier League title he grew up dreaming about with Arsenal. “There was laughing, there was joking, they’re not laughing any more,” he said of the club’s critics after lifting the trophy.
At international level, he is closing in on a milestone of his own. On 48 caps, he is set to become only the fourth player to reach 50 while at Arsenal, following Ashley Cole, Tony Adams and David Seaman. He has already overtaken Cliff Bastin as the club’s record England goalscorer, with his strike against Wales in October 2025 taking him to 13.
He scored three times at the Qatar World Cup – twice against Iran and once against Senegal – and has been a near ever-present for Arsenal, missing only three league games across three seasons from 2021-22 to 2023-24. His league goals dipped to six last season and seven this, but his overall influence remained high.
For England, he remains a guaranteed starter and a symbol of this squad’s maturity.
Noni Madueke (Arsenal, 10 caps)
Madueke calls himself a “dual threat”, comfortable on either wing. Tuchel calls him fast, direct, a dribbler – exactly what he wants.
He scored his first England goal in the 5-0 win in Serbia in October and has become a stylish, unpredictable weapon. His route to the top has been unconventional: Tottenham academy, then a move to PSV sparked by a conversation between his father and the dad of defender Ian Maatsen at a youth tournament.
He won a Dutch Cup with PSV before joining Chelsea in January 2023, where he helped secure the Conference League and Club World Cup last season. Now at Arsenal, he talks openly about a future in fashion. “Football, music, fashion, it’s all connected for me,” he says.
On the pitch, it all connects in a different way – feints, bursts, shots – exactly the chaos Tuchel can unleash from the bench.
Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa, 20 caps)
Watkins thought his England chance might have gone when he was left out of Tuchel’s 35-man squad for the March friendlies. He called it “fuel in your belly to prove what you can do and prove people wrong.”
He needed it. He scored just once in his first 19 games of the season in all competitions. Yet he still extended his remarkable streak of hitting double figures in league goals for 10 consecutive seasons. In April, he became the first Aston Villa player in 66 years to reach 100 goals for the club.
His greatest England moment remains that stoppage-time winner against the Netherlands in the Euro 2024 semi-final. He has six goals in 20 caps since his 2021 debut.
He arrives in America as the classic tournament striker: not the headline act, but more than capable of deciding a night.
Ivan Toney (Al-Ahli, 7 caps)
Few expected a Saudi Pro League striker to make this squad. Toney forced his way in with 32 goals in 32 league games for Al-Ahli this season and 64 in 86 over two campaigns.
Tuchel has barely used him – just a three-minute cameo in a defeat by Senegal last June – but his penalty record and penalty-box instincts are impossible to ignore. When he left England, he had missed just one of his last 31 penalties. He then scored his first 24 for Al-Ahli before finally missing in February.
He lost the Golden Boot by a single goal after Julian Quiñones hit a final-day hat-trick, but his stock still rose sharply. This comes after an eight-month ban in 2023 for breaching FA betting rules, a setback that might have ended lesser careers.
Instead, he lands at a World Cup as England’s most ruthless specialist from 12 yards.
Tuchel’s squad is deep, flexible and battle-hardened. It carries scars from lost finals, fresh medals from league titles, and stories that run from supermarket car parks to Champions League podiums.
The numbers say this is England’s best-prepared group in decades. The question, as ever, is whether preparation finally turns into a trophy – or whether another generation leaves wondering how close they really were.
