England: Harry Maguire reveals reason for World Cup omission after ‘awkward call’ with Thomas Tuchel | OneFootball

Manchester United star Harry Maguire has revealed why Thomas Tuchel decided to leave him out of England’s World Cup squad.

Maguire was among a host of players who were unfortunate not to be called up to feature for England at the World Cup.

The experienced centre-back was one of Man Utd’s most impressive performers during the 2025/26 run-in, and he was certainly deserving of a spot in the England squad.

However, Tuchel decided to favour Dan Burn, Jarell Quansah, Ezri Konsa, Marc Guehi and John Stones over the Man Utd standout.

Maguire quickly spoke out over Tuchel’s decision to reject him, but he has now revealed more details to Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Joe Cole on The Rest is Football.

Maguire has said that he will try to “move on quickly”, but he was “really disappointed” at Tuchel’s decision.

“No, it was a surprise at the time,” Maguire said on the latest episode of The Rest is Football on Netflix.

“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. I thought I would have still had a part to play on the pitch and off the pitch as well.

“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.”

“It’s quite an awkward call…”

Maguire has also revealed how he was informed of Tuchel’s decision, with the England boss FaceTiming the defender and other players.

“No, he speaks to everyone, to be fair,” Maguire revealed.

“So he FaceTimes everyone… Yeah, it’s quite an awkward call… I think he’s got, 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.”

On whether Tuchel gave him a reason for his omission, 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.”

Maguire has also expressed his disappointment at potentially missing out on his last World Cup, with the next tournament looking “far away”.

“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.

“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.”