Liverpool Players in the World Cup 2026: Key Fixtures and Expectations
The World Cup is heading back to North America, bigger and louder than ever, and Liverpool will be right at the heart of it.
With the tournament stretched across the USA, Canada and Mexico and swollen to 48 teams, the group stage begins on Thursday, June 11. From seasoned champions to first-timers, a cluster of Reds will carry club form and expectation onto the game’s grandest stage.
(All kick-off times below are BST.)
Alisson Becker (Brazil)
For Alisson, this is familiar territory. A third World Cup. A third shot at history with the five-time winners. And he is on course to be the first Liverpool player to step onto the pitch at this expanded edition.
Carlo Ancelotti has handed him the gloves again in a 26-man Brazil squad that also features former Red Fabinho, now at Al-Ittihad. The responsibility is obvious. So is the trust.
Brazil’s Group C path is anything but gentle. They open against 2022 semi-finalists Morocco, a side that tore up reputations in Qatar. Then comes Haiti, the kind of game Brazil are expected to dominate, before a potentially charged meeting with Andy Robertson’s Scotland to round off the group.
Brazil’s fixtures
- v Morocco – June 13, 11pm
- v Haiti – June 20, 1.30am
- v Scotland – June 24, 11pm
Wataru Endo (Japan)
Wataru Endo has taken the long way round just to get here. A foot injury with Liverpool in February threatened to derail his World Cup dream, but he forced his way back to fitness and now leads Japan into another campaign as captain.
"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 after the squad announcement. The words fit the player: stubborn, driven, quietly unshakeable.
His reward? One of the most intriguing group assignments of any Red. Japan land in Group F alongside the Netherlands, Tunisia and Sweden, meaning Endo will stare down four Liverpool teammates in the space of three games.
He knows this stage. In 2022, he featured four times as the Samurai Blue surged out of a group containing Spain and Germany, only to fall on penalties to Croatia in the Round of 16. The memory of that exit still stings. The opportunity to go further is right in front of him.
Japan’s fixtures
- v Netherlands – June 14, 9pm
- v Tunisia – June 21, 5am
- v Sweden – June 26, 12am
Cody Gakpo, Ryan Gravenberch and Virgil van Dijk (Netherlands)
Three Liverpool shirts, one national cause.
For Virgil van Dijk and Cody Gakpo, this is familiar pressure. They marched the Netherlands to the quarter-finals in Qatar, only to be knocked out on penalties by eventual champions Argentina. For Ryan Gravenberch, this is new ground: his first World Cup, his first taste of a tournament that can define careers in a single summer.
Gakpo arrives with unfinished business. He scored in all three of the Oranje’s group-stage games in 2022, his form so electric that Liverpool moved swiftly to bring him from PSV Eindhoven to Anfield a month later. This time, he doesn’t just want to light up the group. He wants to stay until the final acts.
The schedule throws up an immediate storyline. The Netherlands open against Endo’s Japan, a game that pits Liverpool’s midfield anchor against the Dutch attacking wave. Then come meetings with Sweden and Tunisia, both awkward, both capable of disrupting any rhythm.
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 the stage that was missing from his career. Sweden failed to qualify in 2022, and he watched the last World Cup from afar. Now he walks into his first, carrying the hopes of a nation that had to claw its way through the play-offs, their route secured via UEFA Nations League ranking.
The story on the touchline is just as striking. Graham Potter, appointed on a short-term basis in October, impressed enough to earn an extension through to 2030 in March. Stability at the top, a refreshed approach on the pitch, and a forward in Isak who has grown into a complete attacking threat at club level.
Sweden’s group is laced with narrative. They open against Tunisia, then face the Dutch trio of Gakpo, Gravenberch and Van Dijk, before closing against Endo’s Japan. Familiar faces in unfamiliar colours. Club bonds parked, at least for 90 minutes.
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 returns to the tournament that changed his life, this time as a World Cup winner and a central figure rather than a surprise package.
Argentina arrive chasing history. Only two nations have ever retained the men’s World Cup: Italy in 1934 and 1938, Brazil in 1958 and 1962. Lionel Scaloni’s side are trying to join that exclusive club, and they will do it again with Lionel Messi as captain, stepping into his sixth World Cup at the age of 38.
Mac Allister’s own arc in 2022 was dramatic. Then at Brighton & Hove Albion, he watched the shock 2-1 defeat to Saudi Arabia from the bench in the opener. From there, everything changed. He started the next six games, grew into a vital cog, and finished the tournament with a medal that instantly rewrote his standing in the game.
Now, as a Liverpool midfielder, he enters Group J with a different kind of expectation. Argentina begin against Algeria, then face Austria and Jordan. On paper, it is a group they should control. On this stage, nothing is guaranteed.
Argentina’s fixtures
- v Algeria – June 17, 2am
- v Austria – June 22, 6pm
- v Jordan – June 28, 3am
From Alisson’s command in Brazil’s goal to Mac Allister’s calm in Argentina’s midfield, from Endo’s grit with Japan to the cluster of Dutch and Swedish Reds colliding in Group F, Liverpool’s fingerprints will be all over this World Cup.
The only question now is which of them will still be standing when North America crowns its champion.
