Two Liverpool players will be involved right up to the end of the 2026 World Cup as the semi-final lineup was completed over the past 24 hours.
France and Spain became the first two teams to book their passage to the last four, where they will face each other in Dallas on Tuesday, with the Reds’ summer signing Victor Munoz in the European champions’ squad.
They were joined in the semis by England and Argentina (who meet in Atlanta on Wednesday) following their extra-time wins on Saturday night, with Alexis Mac Allister on target for the latter as they prevailed against Switzerland.
Several other Liverpool players have fallen by the wayside in previous rounds at the World Cup, but they’re set to be exempted from the upcoming pre-season tour to the USA as they’ll still be on holidays.
As explained by Ian Doyle for the Liverpool Echo, club policy at LFC is typically to allow for players to have three weeks off after the end of their involvement at a major international tournament in the summertime.
The four remaining teams will each have two more matches to play, either advancing to the final next Sunday or having to contest the third place play-off the previous night, so Mac Allister and Munoz will be involved at the World Cup until either 18 or 19 July.
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Applying the general club policy of a three-week break thereafter, it means that the pair aren’t due back at the AXA Training Centre until the weekend of 8/9 August, with Liverpool playing Monaco in a friendly at Anfield on the latter date.
The midfielder and winger are highly unlikely to be involved that afternoon, instead returning to training later that week before (fitness permitting) getting a runout for the friendly at home to Como the following Sunday (16 August).
That fixture falls just seven days before the Reds begin their Premier League campaign away to Newcastle in what is Andoni Iraola’s first official game as our head coach, with Mac Allister and Munoz quickly climbing aboard the seemingly incessant hamster wheel of elite modern-day football for another several months.
For differing reasons, both players may feel they have plenty to prove under the new boss, irrespective of whether or not they return off the back of World Cup glory.
The Argentine midfielder will want to show that his mostly subdued performances of last season were a mere aberration, while the Spanish winger will surely be desperate to get off to a flying start at his new club after signing from Osasuna in June.
Whatever happens at international level over the next week, hopefully the pair can make a consistently impactful contribution for Liverpool throughout the 2026/27 campaign!
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