200: Among the 1,248 players participating in the 2026 World Cup, up to 200 are playing for clubs in England. Next in this list are Germany (109), France (86), Spain (86), Italy (71), Saudi Arabia (49), Netherlands (46), Turkey (45), USA (42), Brazil (36) and Portugal (36).
Qatar and Saudi Arabia: The two teams with the largest number of players playing domestically, with 25/26 people. Their two rare cases playing football abroad are respectively defender Homam Ahmed of the Qatar national team, currently playing for Cultural Leonesa in Spain, while right-back Saud Abdulhamid of Saudi Arabia is playing for Lens in France.
Conversely, all 26 players of the Cabo Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Curaçao, Senegal and Uruguay teams are playing abroad.
17: Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni brought 17 players who won the 2022 World Cup to the 2026 World Cup including: Thiago Almada, Julian Alvarez, Rodrigo De Paul, Enzo Fernandez, Alexis Mac Allister, Emiliano Martinez, Lautaro Martinez, Lisandro Martinez, Lionel Messi, Nahuel Molina, Gonzalo Montiel, Nicolas Otamendi, Exequiel Palacios, Leandro Paredes, Cristian Romero, Geronimo Rulli and Nicolas Tagliafico.
In addition, 5 other players who have won the World Cup also participate in the tournament taking place in the US, Canada and Mexico soon, including: Manuel Neuer (World Cup 2014 champion with the German national team) and Ousmane Dembele, Lucas Hernandez, N'Golo Kante and Kylian Mbappe (World Cup 2018 champion with the French national team).
Man City: The Etihad Stadium team has the most players participating in the 2026 World Cup with 19 people. Man City players wear the jerseys of the national teams of Algeria, Belgium, Croatia, Egypt, England, France, Ghana, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Uzbekistan.
Next are Bayern Munich (18 players), Arsenal (16), Paris Saint-Germain (16), Barcelona (15), Al Hilal (12), Atletico Madrid (12), Crystal Palace (12), Man United (12), Borussia Dortmund (11), Galatasaray (11) and Liverpool (11).
17: 17-year-old talent Gilberto Mora is the youngest player in the 2026 World Cup finals. His teammate in the Mexican national team, Guillermo Ochoa, participated in the World Cup before Mora was born.
If he gets to play, the Tijuana's creative midfielder will become the youngest player from the Concacaf region to ever participate in the World Cup, surpassing his compatriot Manuel Rosas, who was 18 years old at the 1930 Uruguay World Cup.
If Mora plays in Mexico's opening match against South Africa, he will become the sixth youngest player to participate in this tournament, after 17-year-old players such as Pele, Salomon Olembe, Femi Opabunmi, Samuel Eto'o and record holder Norman Whiteside.
Among the five youngest players participating in the upcoming event are Czech midfielder Hugo Sochurek (18 years and 4 days when the World Cup started), German creative midfielder Lennart Karl (18 years and 109 days), Senegalese striker Ibrahim Mbaye (18 years and 138 days) and Egyptian national team striker Hamza Abdelkarim (18 years and 161 days).
13: Lionel Messi of Argentina is the player with the most goals in the World Cup participating in this year's tournament with 13 goals. Next are Kylian Mbappe of France (12 goals), Harry Kane of England (8), Neymar of Brazil (8) and Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal (8).
The record for scoring goals in World Cup history belongs to Miroslav Klose of Germany (16 goals).
6: Lionel Messi, Guillermo Ochoa and Cristiano Ronaldo will participate in their sixth World Cup, an unprecedented record. Previously, they shared the 5-time participation record with Antonio Carbajal, Lothar Matthaus, Gigi Buffon, Rafa Marquez and Andres Guardado.
Meanwhile, with their participation in this year's tournament, Luka Modric, Yuto Nagatomo and Manuel Neuer will have their 5th World Cup appearance.
2.05: Austrian goalkeeper Florian Wiegele, with a height of 2.05m, is the tallest player ever to participate in the World Cup squad. Dutch goalkeeper Andries Noppert set a record with a height of 2.03m at the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
The next tall players in the 2026 finals are English defender Dan Burn (2.01m), Colombian goalkeeper Alvaro Montero (2.01m) and Bosnian and Herzegovinian center-back Stjepan Radeljic (2.01m).
In the opposite direction, Panamanian playmaker Cesar Yanis is the shortest among World Cup players with a height of 1.60m. Next is Curaçao striker Jeremy Antonisse, 1.64m tall.
If Burn and Yanis play in the England vs Panama match, the height difference between them will be up to 41cm.
Previously, the largest height gap between opposing players on the same field in a World Cup match was 39cm between Nikola Zigic of Serbia and Montenegro and Bakary Kone of Ivory Coast at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
