Gyokeres reacts to facing Saliba in World Cup knockouts

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·29 June 2026

Gyokeres reacts to facing Saliba in World Cup knockouts

Viktor Gyokeres is looking forward to playing against William Saliba on Tuesday, and he believes Sweden can cause an upset in their World Cup last-32 match.

Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images

Though Arsenal have 15 internationals in the last-32 of the World Cup, only two of them will be facing off against each other, with Viktor Gyokeres and Sweden taking on William Saliba and France.

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“Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing him and looking forward to play against him,” Gyokeres said of the matchup. “Yeah, it’s going to be fun.

“We have confidence. I think we have to believe in ourselves. We’ve seen in a lot of games at this tournament that you can win games and do well even though you play against the best teams.

“We might be the underdogs, but we still believe in ourselves.”

Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

It won’t be the first time that Gyokeres and Saliba have faced off in a competitive fixture, as Gyokeres played for Sporting CP in a League Phase game against Arsenal back in the 2024/25 season.

Arsenal won the match 5-1, though Gyokeres did cause Saliba one or two problems, and it was only an excellent David Raya save onto the post that denied the striker a goal.

But Gyokeres and Saliba obviously now know each other a lot better from a year of shared training sessions, and it remains to be seen what impact that has on the pitch.

France’s clash with Sweden will be the fourth last-32 match potentially involving Arsenal players, following games for Brazil, Germany, and Norway. The full last-32 fixture list is below.