Who are the players you need to watch out for at the 2026 FIFA World Cup? Here, we’ve picked out 26 we’re looking forward to seeing in action.
With just over a week to go until the 2026 World Cup gets under way in Mexico City, it’s time to ask: who are we excited to see play?
The tournament has been expanded to 48 teams for the first time ever, and with 26 names in every squad, a total of 1,248 players will be heading to the USA, Mexico and Canada. That’s obviously far too many for anyone to get their head around, but that’s where we come in.
We’ve enlisted the help of data nerds and football experts from all over the world in Opta’s ranks to pick out a more manageable number of players to keep an eye out for.
This isn’t a list of the 26 best players going to the World Cup, nor is it a list made up entirely of players you’ve never heard of. The only criterion given to the authors was that they have to be excited about seeing them in action.
So, here are 26 players we’re excited to watch at the 2026 World Cup.
The Players
Click below to skip to the player:
Elliot Anderson ••• Donyell MalenCallum McCowatt ••• Lamine YamalWillian Pacho ••• Mousa Al TamariLamine Camara ••• Besfort Zeneli Ricardo Pepi ••• Aleksandar PavlovicLuiz Henrique ••• Yan DiomandeVitinha ••• Luka VuskovicMichael Olise ••• Ayase UedaCaleb Yirenkyi ••• Stepán ChaloupekArmando González ••• Ibrahim MazaArda Güler ••• Johan ManzambiIsmael Saibari ••• Marko ArnautovicPatrick Berg ••• Nico Paz
Elliot AndersonEngland
The England squad is stacked full of players at Champions League clubs, though in Callum McCowatt for this summer’s World Cup.
The 27-year-old plays in Denmark for Superliga club Silkeborg, where he was a key player in helping them avoid relegation from the top flight in 2025-26.
McCowatt has just completed his sixth season in Danish football following a move to Europe in 2020, but this campaign was his best yet. His goal (11) and assist (five) tallies were more than he’d achieved in his first two Superliga seasons at Silkeborg combined (10 goals, four assists).
Much of his threat comes when running with the ball, with only three Superliga players in 2025-26 having more shot involvements following a ball carry of at least five metres than McCowatt (41 – 29 shots attempted, 12 chances created).
Since scoring on his full international debut for New Zealand in November 2019 against the Republic of Ireland, McCowatt has only scored three more times for his nation, something he’ll be hoping to improve on this summer.
Matt Furniss
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Lamine YamalSpain
Lamine Camara ends up in the Premier League next season.
A hard-working, dynamic and technically gifted central midfielder, Camara already has plenty to give – and he’s only 22.
After his club, Monaco, failed to qualify for the Champions League next season, it’s widely accepted that Camara will be one of the players they have to offload. The World Cup should provide another opportunity to convince big clubs to make their interest known, and he’ll likely feature prominently given he’s already got 31 senior caps.
Defensively, Camara gets through plenty of work, with his 7.7 possession recoveries in Ligue 1 this season the second most among all midfielders (1,000+ mins). But there’s a lot more to him than that.
He’s tidy in tight spaces and uses his body well, the combination of which makes him able to wriggle out of compromising positions, evidence of good press resistance. He also offers decent creativity both in open play and from set-pieces.
The radar above highlights his roundedness as a midfielder. Don’t be surprised if he stands out at this summer’s tournament.
Ryan Benson
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Besfort ZeneliSweden
Just like 32 years ago, when Sweden surprised the world with a third-place finish the last time they played World Cup football in the United States, the Blågult can rely on top-class forwards to once again cause an upset, with Alexander Isak and Viktor Gyökeres present.
But while there is an abundance of options up front, the squad is still looking for a playmaker; one player who will relish playing that role is Aleksandar Pavlovic only established himself as a first-team regular at Bayern Munich around two years ago, given that his composed style of play suggests he has much more experience than he actually does.
Having been forced to pull out of Euro 2024 due to tonsillitis, he is now expected to be as much of a driving force in Germany’s play at his first major tournament as he is at Bayern.
Given that Joshua Kimmich, his midfield partner at club level, is set to play at right-back for the national team, they will rely even more heavily on Pavlovic’s ability to dictate the play.
He impressively demonstrated his importance to Bayern in their 2025-26 Champions League campaign. He averaged 100.4 touches per 90 minutes; among all players with at least 500 minutes of game time, it was the second-highest figure behind Paris Saint-Germain’s Vitinha (111.6), who finished third in the Ballon d’Or voting. In the semi-final first-leg defeat at PSG, he had more touches than anyone else (72) and the best pass completion rate of anyone to play more than 45 minutes.
His overall pass completion rate in the Champions League this season (95.4%) was the best among midfielders and the third best among all players with 500+ minutes, behind two centre-backs, teammate Jonathan Tah (95.8%) and Manchester City’s Abdukodir Khusanov (95.6%).
Christopher Schmidt
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Luiz HenriqueBrazil
Interested in Brazilian dribbling skills? Then you should watch Vitinha.
In the form of the Paris Saint-Germain pass master, the Seleção have a world-class talent at their disposal.
On the ball, he can dictate the tempo of a game, bring much-needed calm when required and also move his team through the gears with his sharp, penetrative passes. He provided 11 assists this season across all competitions, with only Kvicha Kvaratskhelia and Ousmane Dembélé providing more for PSG (12).
Meanwhile, of every player in the top five European leagues, Vitinha completed the most passes (5,234), completed the most passes in the opposition’s half (3,001) and ranked seventh for progressive carries of at least 10 metres (277).
It’s not just on the ball where he excels, though. Off the ball he is intense and covers ground exceptionally well; he won possession 299 times in Ligue 1 this season, which put him third across the top five European leagues.
In Vitinha, Portugal have the guile and creativity to take the initiative in crucial moments, as well as a remarkable awareness and understanding of the game, which, when coupled with his defensive hunger, allows him to win duels, break up attacks and stifle the opposition.
Aaron Barton
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Luka VuskovicCroatia
When it comes to the signings who had the biggest impact on their club’s success in the 2025-26 Bundesliga, the most transformative new arrival was likely Ayase Ueda finally found his rhythm in 2025-26, finishing as the competition’s top scorer with 25 goals. It was a particularly impressive feat considering only three players in the last 40 years have scored as many goals in a league campaign for Feyenoord.
Among players in Europe’s top 10 leagues, only Harry Kane (36), Luis Suárez (28) and Erling Haaland (27) bettered his tally this season.
However, no player in the top 10 leagues could top the nine goals he scored with his head (Paul Onuachu also scored nine for Trabzonspor), proving just how big an aerial threat the 27-year-old centre-forward is.
The Netherlands will be the first opponents of Samurai Blue. Can Ueda hurt the nation he has called his home for the past three years?
Maarten Jol
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Caleb YirenkyiGhana
FC Nordsjælland have built a reputation as one of Europe’s leading talent developers, with the Right to Dream academy providing a steady pipeline of African prospects. Armando González, who has taken Liga MX by storm in the last two years, having made his debut in January 2024 against Santos Laguna and scored his first league goal just two weeks later.
Since the appointment of Gabriel Milito as Chivas manager in May 2025, González has been trusted to lead the line, and that gamble has paid off. ‘La Hormiga’ (the Ant) scored 24 times in 35 games in the 2025-26 season, with his average of 0.69 goals per game the highest in a single season for any Mexican player in Liga MX since 2013.
In the most recent Clausura – the ‘closing’ part of the 2025-26 Liga MX season – González was instrumental for Chivas, who only lost in the semi-finals to eventual champions Cruz Azul. No player was involved in sequences that generated more xG than him (13.6), while he also led the league in shot accuracy, with 53% (27 shots on target from 51 shots), and first-time shots (37).
Antonio Maza
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Ibrahim MazaAlgeria
Following a very busy transfer window in the summer of 2025, Bayer Leverkusen faced questions as to whether their new signings could replace key players such as Florian Wirtz, Granit Xhaka and Jonathan Tah.
Many of their new arrivals failed to play a major role at all, but one who most certainly did was Johan Manzambi is Switzerland’s youngest on the plane to North America.
Following a promising debut season at SC Freiburg in 2024-25, Manzambi quickly emerged as a key performer this term as the club embarked on a journey to the final of the Europa League (seven goals, six assists).
The versatile Manzambi led Freiburg in the Bundesliga this season for duels won (179) and dribbles completed (33). Teeming with confidence and bridging his side’s midfield and attack, Manzambi also recorded 116 progressive carries over 10 metres in length, the most of any central midfielder in the Bundesliga.
Opposing players have found it hard to stop Manzambi, who was fouled 139 times in all competitions in 2025-26, which is more than any other player from a team in Europe’s top five leagues.
To top off his impressive club season, Manzambi scored three of his Bundesliga goals in 2025-26 from outside the box; only Bayern’s Harry Kane (6) and Michael Olise (4) scored more often from distance.
David Schäfer
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Ismael SaibariMorocco
After being given the Eredivisie Player of the Year award for 2025-26, Patrick Berg.
A Bodø native, Berg made a name for himself as a tidy holding midfielder at his hometown club, ranking top five in three consecutive seasons (2019-2021) for possession won in the Norwegian Eliteserien, dominating in duels and pairing that with deep playmaking.
RC Lens managed to lure him out of Bodø for eight months, but home is where the heart is and since returning to the club in August 2022 his play has only developed further. Whereas he recorded eight goals and four assists in his first 120 games in the Eliteserien, he added an impressive 19 goals and 21 assists in the 107 appearances since. In 2025, Patrick Berg reached double figures for assists for the first time in a league season (12) and ranked third for defensive-line-breaking passes (29).
His ability to fulfil different roles has made him a mainstay in the Norway squad, deputising for Sander Berge or Martin Ødegaard when needed and being able to play with them, too. And in doing so, he has already followed in the footsteps of his father Runar and his grandfather Harald in representing his country.
Now, the younger Berg is about to go where no man in his family has gone before, as a World Cup debut awaits.
Michiel Jongsma
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Nico PazArgentina
Attacking midfielder
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