21MAY

Tuchel cuts Foden, Palmer and TAA

3 min read

11:59UTC

Thomas Tuchel left Trent Alexander-Arnold, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer out of England's final 26 on Friday 22 May, three high-profile attackers and a right-back sent home in form.

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Key takeaway

England's gamble is positional balance over Alexander-Arnold's range against teams that defend deep.

Thomas Tuchel, the German head coach of England, cut Trent Alexander-Arnold from his final 26 on Friday 22 May, weeks after recalling the Liverpool right-back to a provisional 55-man list ¹. Phil Foden of Manchester City and Cole Palmer of Chelsea also missed out, two of the Premier League's sharpest attackers omitted while playing well. England therefore go to the tournament without three players their domestic press had treated as near-certainties.

The Alexander-Arnold omission carries a tactical cost the headline hides. He is England's most precise long passer from deep, the player who can break a packed defence with a diagonal before it sets. Leaving him out narrows how England can build against a low block, the shape most group opponents will adopt against a side carrying that much attacking talent. Tuchel has chosen positional balance over a single elite skill, and that trade only reveals itself once England meet a team content to defend its box.

Tuchel's other calls run steadier. Jude Bellingham made it after a hamstring doubt cleared. Jordan Henderson travels to a fourth World Cup, equalling Sir Bobby Charlton's record, and Harry Kane to a third, matching Billy Wright. The instinct shared across this week's squads, fit and trust ahead of recent club output, is one England applied to bigger names than anyone else.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Every World Cup squad has 26 places, and coaches always have to leave out some very good players. On 22 May, England manager Thomas Tuchel announced his final 26, and three famous names were missing: Trent Alexander-Arnold (a right-back and midfielder who plays for Real Madrid), Phil Foden (a midfielder who won England's top individual player award recently), and Cole Palmer (a Chelsea attacking midfielder in outstanding form). All three are at the top of their games right now. Tuchel left them out on tactical grounds: he wants players who work in a specific way without the ball, and he judged others a better fit for that system. England's results in June will show whether that call was right. Jude Bellingham, arguably England's best player, did make the squad after recovering from a hamstring injury that had worried staff.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Alexander-Arnold's Real Madrid transfer in summer 2025 introduced a positional ambiguity that never resolved under Tuchel. At Liverpool he played right-back with licence to invert centrally; at Real Madrid the system demanded a more orthodox defensive role. Tuchel, whose own defensive structure requires right-back discipline, lost confidence that Alexander-Arnold would replicate Madrid's restraint in an England shirt rather than revert to Liverpool instincts.

Foden and Palmer's omissions reflect a surplus problem this England generation has carried for years: more elite attacking midfielders than a balanced 26 can hold, with Bellingham first-choice and Rashford and Saka filling the wide creative roles. Tuchel was not choosing between strong and weak players; he was choosing among several of similar quality, and somebody outstanding was always going to miss out.

What could happen next?

Risk
England's open-play chance creation drops significantly without Palmer and Foden, increasing reliance on set-pieces and Bellingham's individual brilliance.
Immediate · Assessed
Consequence
The Alexander-Arnold omission ends his England World Cup career at 27, barring a recall in 2030.
Long term · Assessed
Precedent
Tuchel's willingness to cut three of England's five most commercial players signals that The Football Association has genuinely ceded selection authority to the coaching staff, a structural shift from the Southgate era.
Medium term · Assessed

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: England under Glenn Hoddle left a teenage David Beckham out of the opening 1998 World Cup matches on the manager's judgment of fit rather than reputation, and the squad's creative balance became the defining post-tournament debate after elimination to Argentina. A manager subordinating high-profile attacking names to his own system is a recurring England story, and Tuchel's cut of Palmer and Foden sits squarely in that tradition.

Counter-parallel: Fabio Capello went to the 2010 World Cup without David Beckham, who was injured, and the side still reached the round of 16 before losing heavily to Germany. Leaving out a talismanic name does not by itself sink a tournament; the system either produces or it does not, regardless of who is absent.

Consensus view: Tuchel's cut follows a recognisable tournament logic: prioritise positional discipline and off-ball work over the highest individual technical ceilings. Joachim Löw won the 2014 World Cup with Germany on a similar principle, leaving flair options at home for players who held shape. The trade-off is that England's chance creation from open play falls when its most inventive passers, Palmer and Foden, are the names cut.

Counter-view: The opposing read is that this signals conservatism imported from Tuchel's club career, where compact shape and transition control matter more than raw creativity, rather than a plan built around England's specific strengths. All three cut players would start for most other squads at this tournament, and the noise around Alexander-Arnold's move from Liverpool to Real Madrid sits awkwardly close to a decision Tuchel frames as purely tactical.

Key tension: Whether Tuchel can generate the chance volume England needs to win knockout matches without its sharpest creators, or whether a tighter, more functional side trades goals for control it cannot convert.

Sources:The Football Association

Mentions:Thomas Tuchel →Trent Alexander-Arnold →Jude Bellingham →Jordan Henderson →Bobby Charlton →Billy Wright →Israel Football Association →Real Madrid →England →Premier League →Germany →Argentina →World Cup →Harry Kane →

First Reported In

Update #12 · Squads land, subpoenas follow

The Football Association· 29 May 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Tuchel recalls Alexander-Arnold; Bellingham hamstring worse than feared

Tuchel recalled Alexander-Arnold to the provisional 55 but then cut him from the final 26 on 22 May.

Occurred 12 May 2026

Read story →

This Event

Tuchel cuts Foden, Palmer and TAA

England travel without their record passer at right-back, narrowing the build-up options against teams that sit deep.

Led to

Tuchel Runs Two XIs in England's 1-0 Win

Tuchel's earlier cuts of Alexander-Arnold, Foden and Palmer shaped the squad selection Tuchel is now finalising through the two-XI exercise.

Occurred 7 Jun 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

French Football Federation

The FFF called an 11:00 CEST press conference for 28 July, at its Paris headquarters, following an extraordinary executive committee meeting, at which Zinedine Zidane is expected to be presented as head coach succeeding Didier Deschamps. As of this writing no communique confirms the appointment, contract length or start date.

Morocco

Morocco is pushing for the 2030 final at its Grand Stade Hassan II in Casablanca, a planned 115,000-seat venue that would be the world's largest football stadium on completion. The venue is contested by a Spanish petition for the Santiago Bernabeu, and FIFA has fixed neither the venue nor the tournament's proposed 64-team format.

FIFA

FIFA's first tournament report, published 27 July, itemises nearly 300,000 accredited personnel, 73,700 security staff and 300,000 square metres of custom-grown turf, with no revenue or cost figure attached. As a Swiss association answering to its own Congress rather than a treasury, FIFA has followed the same operational-before-financial sequence it used after Qatar 2022.

Javier Tebas / La Liga

La Liga president Javier Tebas said on 21 July that FIFA's system is rotten from the root and that Gianni Infantino's time as president has, in his words, concluded. Tebas has no vote in FIFA's process, so days after the IOC declined jurisdiction over a separate ethics complaint, he used the only instrument he has.

Mexico City government

Head of government Clara Brugada presented a closing report on 22 July crediting the tournament with 44 billion pesos of economic activity, 2,000-plus accelerated public works and 100,000 formal jobs in June alone. The city has not published the method behind that figure, and three other Mexican bodies count the same five weeks differently.

Town of Foxborough

Foxborough answered Kraft Group's June lawsuit on 7 July with a 61-page counterclaim, calling the stadium's owners 'a collection of multibillion-dollar corporations' trying to shift its $7.8 million security bill onto taxpayers. The town says its licensing power and its billing power run through the same board, and it wants the court to award its own costs too.