The 2026 World Cup is almost upon us, with the newly-expanded tournament getting underway on Thursday and continuing right the way through to the final on 19 July.
Liverpool will have eight current players involved at the finals, along with the departing trio of Mo Salah, Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate, although recent England debutant Rio Ngumoha won’t feature because of his omission from the provisional 55-player squad in May.
With the competition taking place across a multitude of time zones in North America, it’ll mean some very late nights for Reds fans in the UK, Ireland and Europe if they want to see every game involving an Anfield star.
Here’s the full list of group games with Liverpool involvement, with kick-off times listed in BST:
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Curiously, more than half of the Liverpool players at this World Cup are concentrated in one group, with Netherlands, Sweden and Japan all facing off in Group E, and at least two of those (quite plausibly all three) will advance to the knockout rounds.
Danny Murphy is particularly intrigued to see Wirtz, Isak and Gravenberch in action, with the former two feeling they’ll have a point to prove after the criticism they shipped in their first season at Anfield, and the latter’s positional deployment under Ronald Koeman sure to be intriguing.
There’ll also be plenty of eyes on holders Argentina to see if they can become the first team since 1962 to retain the World Cup trophy. If that happens, Mac Allister would become the first LFC player to win the tournament since Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina with Spain in 2010.
Even with no Liverpool involvement in the England squad, there’s sure to be plenty of vested interest from Kopites in the 48-team extravaganza across USA, Canada and Mexico, not least from the Reds’ new head coach Andoni Iraola as he scopes out the players he’ll be leading next season.
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