The World Cup's most tactically interesting teams
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The Athletic FC.
Hello and welcome to the Athletic FC Tactics Podcast. I'm Michael Bailey. With the World Cup right around the corner, we're discussing the most tactically interesting teams at this summer's tournament. Plus, we'll assess how the favourites are looking and how to build a successful World Cup squad. Here with me is Michael Cox. Hi, Michael. Connor O'Neill. Hello, Michael. And Liam Tharm. Hey, Michael. There's a week to go until the 2026 World Cup kicks off across the USA, Canada and Mexico. And I wanted to kick off this tactical preview by breaking down the concept of squad composition for a tournament. Let's use England as an example. People have been surprised by Thomas Tuchel's decision to leave out players such as Cole Palmer and Harry Maguire.
But what actually makes a balanced World Cup squad, Michael? Is it just about including the quote-unquote most talented players?
I think in terms of the starting 11, it tends to be about including the most talented players. I think sometimes people forget when you go back through previous World Cup successes, often players who were really out of form or lacking fitness coming into the tournament end up having a massive impact. I mean, the classic example would be Ronaldo, barely played for the two years before 2002 and ended up being the key player of the tournament. I'd say to a certain extent, Iniesta going into 2010. didn't have a great season either and he was Spain's hero now obviously they're on a very very high level and probably players you would make allowances for when it comes to the squad I think you do need I think there's been a shift towards managers wanting players who know their role within the squad and if you're going to be a backup they're being quite clear and quite firm and saying look you're probably not going to play particularly a lot of the reserve defenders but we need you there we need to be part of the squad I personally don't think that Tuchel's
picks for this squad the controversial admissions I should say were really based around that I think it's actually a bit more simple with him I think he basically wants two players for every position everyone to know their tactical role he hasn't got too many players where you're saying well he could play there he could play here it's pretty obvious who the wingers are who the number tens are who the midfielders are and I think he's basically just picked the two that he thinks are most likely to to perform best
I mean, England aren't obviously the only ones to have kind of question marks. I think inevitably there's always going to be, you know, you've left out this player or why didn't you take this other player? France have a very similar problem, I think, of so much kind of attacking quality and attacking depth. And we can say the same about the US side that Pochettino's picked, which look quite light in midfield, have got a lot of forwards, a lot of defenders. But there's that whole point that actually all three of those coaches have kind of spoken on this and said, it's about taking kind of the most tactically complete squad that you almost want this problem where you've got too much talent from England's perspective.
You've got, you know, kind of five or six number 10s that you could make an argument that a lot of these would start for other countries. Well, that's great. That's fine. But we saw at the last tournament, the Euros, that England had a problem with really lacking balance because they were trying to shoehorn in all of these number 10s. They tried to play Foden off the left as kind of a a false kind of winger and that just it just didn't work they didn't have the balance that they needed an attack and i think two schools looked at this as have other coaches that you've got the group stage navigate first and probably play teams are going to be a bit worse than you or much inferior where you're going to have to dominate the ball and then you have to beat better teams in the knockout round so you're looking at all those different scenarios that might come up of having high possession having low possession being ahead being behind you need players or different players sorry for different moments
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