It's almost time for the World Cup. Before the tournament, we'll be previewing each of the top 15 teams by FIFA rankings that made the tournament. Why the top 15? Because that's how many we needed to do in order for the USMNT to make the cut. You can read all of our previews here.
Over the last eight years or so, no team has been better than England at establishing a gap between the anticipation created by the overabundance of talent on its rosters and the excitement created by actually watching that roster play soccer. The results have been fitting: a loss in the semifinals at the 2018 World Cup, losses in the final at the Euros in 2020 and 2024, and a quarterfinals flameout at the 2022 World Cup. If you're an England fan, or just someone who wants to see great soccer players do cool stuff, the Three Lions' performances in those tournaments would have really ground your gears. One of the most talent-rich countries in the world set aside concepts like "attacking" and "having fun" to deploy a cagier, more structured style that is meant to be more suited to international competitions. All that strategy has yielded so far is underachievement that is also shit to watch.
If the 2026 edition of this team has anything going for it, it's that expectations have been lowered considerably. Yes, England is technically coming into this tournament as one of the favorites, but the years have taken a toll. All those players who were once shiny, new, and brimming with history-making potential have since settled in as known quantities on a good-but-not-great team. The only notable new presence here is manager Thomas Tuchel, who took over after longtime custodian Gareth Southgate resigned following the 2024 Euros.
Tuchel is certainly a better and more creative manager than Southgate, and England cruised through its creampuff qualification matches without conceding a single goal in eight games. But he hasn't presided over enough high-stakes games to give anyone much of a feel for how his version of the England squad measures up. Optimists will point to a 5-0 win over Serbia in September 2025; doubters will highlight a 3-1 loss to Senegal a few months prior. There's just not much to go on here, and thus not much to get too excited or depressed about.
Tuchel might be happy to keep things that way, at least judging by his team selection. Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, and Morgan Gibbs-White—all creative attacking players in their primes—have been left at home for less glamorous options. It will be impossible not to think of at least one of them every time the camera cuts to England's bench and Jordan Henderson or Djed Spence is suddenly on screen. Tuchel's roster reads like one that doesn't want to make too many promises, and maybe that's the point.
Who Is Their Main Guy?
Same guy as it was four years ago: Harry Kane. And for many of the same reasons, too. At age 32, Kane should be in the process of graduating out of Main Guy–hood for this team, but he is once again headed into a tournament as England's most important player.
Kane's centrality to England's success has as much to do with his talents—he's still very good, having scored 36 league goals for Bayern Munich last season—as it does with England's inability to build a cohesive attacking structure around him. Kane's the kind of versatile and lethal striker that, in theory, should make it easy for his team to generate consistent attacks, but for whatever reason things have never quite clicked.
This year, Kane heads into the World Cup surrounded by attackers who don't exactly look prepared to set the world on fire. Bukayo Saka will probably start on the right wing, which should be tantalizing given his combination of youth, skill, and big-game experience, but he also is coming off a down Premier League season in which he was part of Arsenal's notoriously goal-averse championship campaign. It is possible that Mikel Arteta has removed all thoughts of creativity and scoring from this young lad's head.
On Kane's left will likely be Anthony Gordon or Marcus Rashford—both good young (-ish, in Rashford's case) players with plenty to offer, but neither of whom are going to rev anyone's engine. The more important question is about who will play directly behind Kane, operating in the No. 10 position. The central area of the pitch is where the England squad has been crying out for a player who can control the game and actually knit the attack together in a way that gets the best out of its forwards. Foden, Palmer, and Gibbs-White are all options who were left at home, which leaves Tuchel to choose between Jude Bellingham, Eberechi Eze, and Morgan Rogers. If one of those players can step into the lineup, play confidently, and start dictating the action, then England's attack might finally unclog a bit and allow Kane to feast.
Who Is Their Main Non-Scoring Guy?
Same guy it was four years ago: Declan Rice. It's hard to point to anything too specific or descriptive that makes Rice so great, because the fact is that he's just really, really good at everything you'd want a central midfielder to be good at. He's confident on the ball, can play a nice pass, and relishes defending to an almost alarming degree. Rice is, more than anything else, resolute.
It's that quality that makes him so important to both England and Arsenal. For as much (mostly deserved) kvetching was done about Arsenal's defensive-minded march to the Premier League title, it's impossible not to appreciate how central Rice was to the success of Arteta's project. You're trained as a fan to see a team committing itself to defensive solidity, to retreating into a shell and absorbing attacks, as a sign of weakness. But Rice is the kind of player who makes it look it look like a strength. Soccer isn't the kind of sport that allows a player to elevate a team's offense or defense too high on his own, but watching Rice this year was like watching Ray Lewis play middle linebacker, or Victor Wembanyama defend the paint. He was just always right where he needed to be, always making the right intervention, always stronger than whichever opponent met him at the ball, and never tiring. It's nice to have a midfielder whose mere presence on the pitch makes it feel all but impossible that the other team will score.
Who Is Most Likely To Break Out?
Most of the questions about whether England can get the goal-scoring machine turned on this summer will be directed at the wingers and whoever is playing behind Kane in the midfield, but answers might ultimately arrive from the left back position. That's where Nico O'Reilly, a 21-year-old from Manchester City, should be starting every game.
O'Reilly's career has followed an increasingly common development arc, in that he established himself in City's academy and on its youth team as a quintessential attacking midfielder, but had to slide over to full back in order to find space to break into the first team. This makes him the kind of player that is in high demand these days: an attacker in a defender's body who has the versatility to perform both jobs at a high level.
O'Reilly played 34 games for City in the Premier League this year, contributing five goals and three assists. City had a down season (by its lofty standards) overall, but O'Reilly consistently provided a spark that wasn't coming from anywhere else. Time and again, City's most dangerous attacks arrived as a result of O'Reilly drifting in from his left back position to get on the ball, take matters into his own hands, and make something happen. It's entirely possible that he will have to do the same thing at this tournament, and in the process will become a superstar by turning a listless England attack into something that finally looks like the sum of its parts.
Who Is Most Likely To Eat Shit?
To the extent that it's possible to feel bad for a world-famous soccer player who starts for Real Madrid, Jude Bellingham is a sympathetic figure. Blessed with more physical gifts and talent than seems possible, he has everything he needs to be one of the best all-action midfielders in the world. And yet for both Madrid and England, he has been repeatedly tasked with playing a more advanced role, as more of a classic No. 10 or even a second striker. He can perform this job capably, but it confines him to a position where some of his best skills aren't given room to flourish.
In the 2024 Euros, Bellingham and Kane spent most of the tournament stepping on each other's toes. The space that Bellingham likes to occupy as an attacking midfielder is the same space that Kane likes to drop into himself and play passes out to his wingers. This made both players somewhat redundant, and Bellingham spent most of the tournament fading in and out of the action.
Something needs to change this time around, and it will either be Bellingham's positioning or his spot in the pecking order. Morgan Rogers can play the same position at a high level, and is a little more comfortable drifting out to wider areas in order to accommodate Kane's preferred movements.
Bellingham is coming off a disappointing season at Madrid, and the last thing he can afford is getting iced out of England's starting XI. Tuchel has been making plenty of noise about how Bellingham needs to fight for his spot like everyone else, surely with an eye towards motivating one of his star players to reach new heights. If that doesn't work, Rogers is waiting in the wings.
How Can They Win It All?
As much as I'd love to bang on about how this England team will never reach its full potential until it starts playing some free-flowing, creative soccer, such a demand would feel anachronistic in the year of Artetaball's ascendance. The truth is that this team has a path to victory that is not all that dissimilar from the one Arsenal just walked. They should be extremely hard to score against, and they have enough attacking talent to eke out goals where they need them. At an international tournament, that's often all it takes.
