Thomas Tuchel has gambled with his England squad - now he must win World Cup

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Evening Standard

·22 Mei 2026

Thomas Tuchel has gambled with his England squad - now he must win World Cup

Tuchel’s squad selection hugely divided opinion

To try to make sense of this England squad is to be absolutely certain that this is Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup and his players are simply living in it — or aren’t his players, so aren’t living in it, as their situation may be.

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The England head coach has taken a stand and made his point that he sees England’s tournament how he sees it. The specifics of the 26 players he has named show he is here not to be popular but to give England the best chance, in his eyes, to win this World Cup.

“It is an exciting day for me,” he said with a mischievous grin at Wembley, as he explained the machinations of a World Cup squad that is proving as controversial as any major tournament squad picked by an England manager in modern memory.

Tuchel selected Djed Spence over Lewis Hall, 35-year-old Jordan Henderson over Adam Wharton, Tino Livramento over Trent Alexander-Arnold and, as publicly deemed "disgraceful" by the Manchester United man’s mother, Dan Burn over a “gutted and shocked” Harry Maguire.

In doing so, he was showing faith with most of the individuals who had helped England qualify with a flawless record and without conceding a goal. In that regard, Jarrod Bowen’s absence is the most unlucky and probably the most unfounded.

Perhaps, Tuchel suggested, Bowen is a victim of “the situation at his club”. You assume that will hardly take the edge off, or make the West Ham captain feel any better.

Surprise pick: Ivan Toney

The selection of Ivan Toney as a third-choice striker was a shock and will remain one. Toney has scored 32 goals in as many games this season but has done so in the Saudi Pro League, a division rated by Opta as weaker than the Cypriot first division and than League One. The question from many: is this the best we have got?

His call-up was, Tuchel admitted, “also a bit of a surprise to us”. Again, the excluded Dominic Calvert-Lewin will hardly be delighted to read that. Tuchel says he has received good feedback and has a strong relationship with Toney’s head coach at Al Ahli. He would, though, wouldn’t he. Tuchel coached Matthias Jaissle in Stuttgart’s youth team.

Toney’s selection — a scorer of 47 of his 50 career penalties, including one for England in a tournament shootout — is understandable even if it is not truly merited.

“We have specialists for all sorts of scenarios,” Tuchel explained.

“We always said we want to be a strong set-piece team. We have specialists for that. And specialists for penalties. We have specialists for when we are leading, when we [are chasing].”

The size of the name, the clamour around a certain player: these are not the German’s concern, as he made abundantly clear at Wembley on Friday.

Phil Foden and Cole Palmer were left out because Jude Bellingham, Morgan Rogers and Eberechi Eze are his preferred No10s and he did not want to use them out of position. Sir Gareth Southgate had been lambasted for doing so with Foden wide left at Euro 2024. Morgan Gibbs-White has more goal contributions than any other Premier League Englishman since the turn of the year but could not be used in another position.

“What did they do for us? Does someone bring a totally different profile?”, was Tuchel’s thinking when whittling down the 55-man provisional squad he had submitted to FIFA to the 26 he will ultimately take to North America.

“Then we watch them. Of course, it is never out of the picture, what they do for their club.” Club form an afterthought? That was the order the words left his mouth.

No Trent Alexander-Arnold or Adam Wharton may mean no luxury passer, but Djed Spence, without a goal or assist this season for struggling Spurs and with one start in their last six, is in. The justification? “He was excellent in every match he played for us. He brings something to the group that we don’t have in other profiles. He loves defending. He’s the fastest player in our squad.”

A conversation between Tuchel and Spence took place in March when he was called up that month. He needed to play more regularly for Tottenham and influence games more when on the pitch, he was told. His performance against Uruguay in that 1-1 draw impressed a manager who always wanted to show faith in him and others who had been instrumental in qualifying. Noni Madueke is in for a similar reason.

Tuchel opted to ring every player who had been in any of his squads at least once, informing them individually, in batches of phone calls over the past three days, of his decision one way or the other and the thinking behind it.

Maguire came out with a public statement on Thursday evening, bemoaning the German’s decision to leave him out before the squad had even been officially 'announced' on Friday morning. Tuchel was disappointed by that.

It is a squad with some eyebrow-raising inclusions and some statement omissions, but was it not always going to be that way?

Tuchel’s message is not dissimilar from Frank Sinatra’s. He’ll do it his way. It may all blow up in his face, yet he sees these picks as giving him and England the best chance of avoiding that.

“The goal is to try to win it and not to be shy about it.”