Liverpool Players in the Expanded World Cup 2026

The World Cup is back, bigger than ever, and Liverpool’s fingerprints are all over it.

Expanded to 48 teams and stretched across the USA, Canada and Mexico, the tournament kicks off on Thursday, June 11, with a host of Reds stepping into the global spotlight. Some are chasing history. Others are simply chasing the feeling of walking out on this stage for the first time.

All kick-off times below are BST.

Alisson Becker (Brazil)

For Alisson, this is familiar territory. A third World Cup. Another shot with Brazil. Another summer where the Liverpool goalkeeper carries the weight of a football-obsessed nation on his shoulders.

He is expected to be the first Liverpool player to feature at this edition, anchoring a Brazil squad again loaded with expectation. Former Red Fabinho, now at Al-Ittihad, joins him in Carlo Ancelotti’s 26-man group, adding a touch of Anfield history to the Selecao midfield.

Brazil’s Group C schedule is anything but gentle. They open against 2022 semi-finalists Morocco, a side that tore up reputations in Qatar and will not fear the five-time champions. Then comes Haiti, a potential trap if focus slips. The group finishes with a meeting against Andy Robertson’s Scotland, a clash that will tug at Anfield loyalties and test Brazil’s nerve.

Brazil’s fixtures

• v Morocco – June 13, 11pm
• v Haiti – June 20, 1.30am
• v Scotland – June 24, 11pm

Wataru Endo (Japan)

Wataru Endo arrives at this World Cup with a captain’s armband and a scar or two from the journey. A foot injury with Liverpool in February threatened to derail his tournament. It didn’t.

"It wasn't an easy way to recover from the injury but I believed in myself to make this happen and will keep working hard to get fit for the games," he said when Japan named their squad. It was a glimpse into the mentality that has made him such a steadying force at club and country.

Now 33, Endo leads a Japan side that no longer sneaks up on anyone. At the last World Cup, the Samurai Blue marched out of a group containing Spain and Germany, only to fall to Croatia on penalties in the Round of 16. That run reset expectations.

This time, the narrative is different. Group F throws him straight into a Liverpool-heavy environment: Japan face the Netherlands first, then Tunisia, then Sweden. Four Liverpool teammates across those fixtures. Familiar faces, unfamiliar stakes.

Japan’s fixtures

• v Netherlands – June 14, 9pm
• v Tunisia – June 21, 5am
• v Sweden – June 26, 12am

Cody Gakpo, Ryan Gravenberch, Virgil van Dijk (Netherlands)

The Dutch contingent arrives with unfinished business.

Virgil van Dijk and Cody Gakpo know the sharp end of this competition. In Qatar, they pushed the eventual champions Argentina to penalties in the quarter-finals and walked away with nothing but regret and a sense of what might have been.

Gakpo lit up that group stage, scoring in all three matches before his move from PSV Eindhoven to Anfield. He went from rising star to headline act in a matter of weeks.

Ryan Gravenberch, though, steps into the World Cup arena for the first time. For him, this is the stage he has been told he belongs on since his teenage years. Now he has to prove it.

The Netherlands line up in Group F, opening against Endo’s Japan in a game that pits Liverpool’s captain of Asia against its Dutch core. Sweden follow, with Alexander Isak leading their line, and then Tunisia to close the group. It is a section loaded with subplots, but the Dutch will be judged on one thing only: how far they go.

Netherlands’ fixtures

• v Japan – June 14, 9pm
• v Sweden – June 20, 6pm
• v Tunisia – June 26, 12am

Alexander Isak (Sweden)

For Alexander Isak, this is a long-awaited debut.

Sweden missed out in 2022. The gap hurt. The response was sharp. They battled their way through the play-offs to reach 2026, leaning on their UEFA Nations League ranking to even get there. Once in, they made it count.

Isak now walks into his first World Cup as one of Sweden’s primary attacking threats and as a Liverpool player with the world watching closely. His nation turned to Graham Potter last October on a short-term deal. By March, the Swedish FA had seen enough to extend his contract through to 2030. Stability on the touchline, ambition on the pitch.

Group F offers no easing-in period. Sweden start against Tunisia, then collide with the Netherlands in a fixture that will draw plenty of Anfield attention, before finishing against Endo’s Japan. Every game carries a narrative. Isak’s task is to cut through all of it and score.

Sweden’s fixtures

• v Tunisia – June 15, 3am
• v Netherlands – June 20, 6pm
• v Japan – June 26, 12am

Alexis Mac Allister (Argentina)

Alexis Mac Allister arrives not as a hopeful outsider, but as a defending champion.

He was a pivotal part of Argentina’s charge to the title in 2022. Back then, still at Brighton & Hove Albion, he watched the opening defeat to Saudi Arabia from the bench. From the second game onward, Lionel Scaloni trusted him. Six straight starts later, he had a winner’s medal around his neck and a move to Liverpool on the horizon.

Now the mission is clear: make Argentina just the third nation to retain the men’s World Cup. Only Italy (1934, 1938) and Brazil (1958, 1962) have managed it. That is the scale of the challenge.

Lionel Messi, 38 years old and heading into his sixth World Cup, still wears the armband. He remains the reference point, the emotional core, the standard. Around him, players like Mac Allister must carry the running, the pressing, the balance.

Argentina open Group J against Algeria, then face Austria and Jordan. On paper, it is a group they should control. On the pitch, complacency has ruined champions before.

Argentina’s fixtures

• v Algeria – June 17, 2am
• v Austria – June 22, 6pm
• v Jordan – June 28, 3am

From Alisson’s calm in goal to Mac Allister’s craft in midfield, from Endo’s leadership to Isak’s hunger and the Dutch trio’s ambition, Liverpool’s squad is scattered across this expanded World Cup like a thread through the tournament’s fabric.

The question now is simple: who comes back to Anfield with a medal, and who returns with the feeling that this was the one that got away?