World Cup 2026: Liverpool Players and Their Journey

The World Cup is stretching across a continent this time, spilling from the USA to Canada and Mexico, swollen to 48 teams and a new shape. For Liverpool, it is also a sprawling story – a squad scattered across nations, roles and expectations as the group stage kicks off on Thursday, June 11 (all times BST).

Some arrive as champions. Some as leaders. Some as debutants. All of them carry a slice of Anfield into 2026.

Alisson Becker – Brazil’s last line, Liverpool’s first on stage

Alisson Becker heads into his third World Cup as Brazil’s No.1 and the first Liverpool player likely to feature at this expanded edition.

The five-time world champions have rebuilt again, but Alisson remains a constant. Carlo Ancelotti has named him in a 26-man squad that also includes former Red Fabinho, now of Al-Ittihad, as Brazil chase a sixth crown and a return to the summit after years of frustration.

Their Group C path is anything but gentle. It starts with a meeting against 2022 semi-finalists Morocco, a side that stunned Europe last time and will not be cowed by the yellow shirt. Then comes Haiti, hungry and unburdened by history, before a potentially tense clash with Andy Robertson’s Scotland to close the group.

Brazil’s fixtures (BST):

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

For Alisson, it is another World Cup with the gloves on and the weight of a nation on his shoulders. He has lived that pressure before. He knows exactly what comes with it.

Wataru Endo – captain, survivor, standard-bearer for Japan

A foot injury with Liverpool in February threatened to wreck Wataru Endo’s World Cup. It didn’t.

The midfielder has fought his way back to fitness in time not just to travel, but to captain Japan. His recovery was a race against the calendar, and he admitted as much when the squad was announced: it was hard, it hurt, but he backed himself and made it.

Now 33, Endo walks into a group that feels almost like a reunion. Japan have been drawn in Group F alongside the Netherlands, Tunisia and Sweden – four Liverpool teammates waiting across three opponents.

He knows this stage. In Qatar, Endo played four times as the Samurai Blue escaped a group containing Spain and Germany, only to fall on penalties to Croatia in the last 16. That experience lingers, both the achievement and the cruelty of the exit.

Japan’s fixtures (BST):

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

This time, he returns as captain, a Liverpool player and the heartbeat of a team that no longer sneaks up on anyone.

Cody Gakpo, Ryan Gravenberch, Virgil van Dijk – Dutch core with unfinished business

The Netherlands arrive with a familiar spine and a new twist.

Virgil van Dijk and Cody Gakpo know what this tournament feels like. They reached the quarter-finals in Qatar, only to be knocked out by eventual champions Argentina in a penalty shootout that still stings. Gakpo scored in all three group games at that World Cup, his form paving the way for his move from PSV Eindhoven to Liverpool a month later.

Ryan Gravenberch is the fresh face in this context. This is his first World Cup, his first taste of the global stage with the Oranje, and he does it alongside two club teammates who have already walked the path he is about to tread.

The Dutch open against Endo’s Japan, a match that instantly intertwines Liverpool storylines. Then comes Sweden, then Tunisia, in a group that should be navigable but offers enough threat to keep complacency at bay.

Netherlands’ fixtures (BST):

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

For Van Dijk, this feels like another shot at the one prize missing from a glittering career. For Gakpo, it is a chance to prove that his breakout in Qatar was no one-off. For Gravenberch, it is the beginning.

Alexander Isak – Sweden’s new-era spearhead

Alexander Isak walks into his first World Cup as one of Sweden’s central hopes and one of Liverpool’s emerging figures.

Sweden missed out in 2022. That hurt, and it forced change. They clawed their way into this tournament through the play-offs, using their UEFA Nations League ranking to earn a second chance and then taking it.

Graham Potter arrived as head coach on a short-term deal in October, a move that raised eyebrows at the time. By March, his contract had been extended to 2030. That tells its own story about how the Swedish federation see their future – and how Isak fits into it.

Sweden’s fixtures (BST):

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

A group with Gravenberch, Gakpo, Van Dijk and Endo means every game carries a Liverpool sub-plot. For Isak, though, this is about more than club threads. It is about announcing himself on the biggest stage his country has.

Alexis Mac Allister – world champion chasing history with Argentina

Alexis Mac Allister returns to the World Cup not as a hopeful outsider, but as a reigning champion.

Argentina arrive in 2026 with a chance to join the most exclusive of clubs. Only two nations have ever defended the men’s World Cup: Italy in 1934 and 1938, and Brazil in 1958 and 1962. Lionel Scaloni’s side are hunting a third member of that group.

Lionel Messi will captain them again, at 38, in his sixth World Cup. That alone gives this campaign a sense of occasion. Around him, Mac Allister has shifted from promising squad player to established figure since that wild night in Lusail.

In 2022, he started the tournament on the bench, watching a 2-1 defeat to Saudi Arabia as a Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder. After that shock, he came into the XI and stayed there for the next six games, helping drag Argentina all the way to the trophy. By the time he lifted it, his career trajectory had changed forever.

Now, as a Liverpool player, he steps into Group J with the status of a world champion and the responsibility that comes with it. Argentina open against Algeria, then face Austria and Jordan.

Argentina’s fixtures (BST):

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

The target is clear: defend the crown, defy history, and send Messi’s World Cup story out on a note few athletes ever reach.

From Alisson’s Brazil to Mac Allister’s Argentina, via Endo’s Japan and a Dutch-Swedish tangle heavy with Liverpool accents, this World Cup will unfold across three countries and countless narratives. For the Reds’ contingent, the question is simple: who will come back with a medal, and who will return with a sense that this was the chance that slipped away?