Nico Williams in the second half, then Oyarzabal with six minutes left, and England had lost another final. Berlin, July 2024. Spain went home as European champions and nobody who watched that game has forgotten the 86th minute.
Spain come to America as defending champions and one of the favourites. De la Fuente named his 26 on May 25, Yamal in despite the hamstring, three Arsenal players going, Gavi back from two years of injuries.
THE SQUAD
THE SQUAD NEWS
No Real Madrid players. Huijsen left out. Carvajal left out. Real Madrid had a season that did not produce much and the knock-on effect reached the national team. De la Fuente looked at his options and decided none of the Bernabeu players made his strongest 26. It has never happened before at a World Cup. Spain going to North America as European champions without a single player from the most decorated club in the competition’s history.
De la Fuente named Yamal in the squad and said he would be fit for June 15. He is 17. He turns 18 on July 13 and the final is six days after that. If Spain win the whole thing, Yamal will spend most of the tournament as a teenager and lift the World Cup before he is legally allowed to drink in most of the host cities.
Gavi missed most of 2024 and spent most of 2025 in recovery too. He should be 24 and in the prime of a career that looks on paper like one of the best of his generation. Instead he has been on treatment tables while his teammates won a European Championship without him. He is in this squad and if he stays fit there is a version of Spain’s midfield with him, Pedri, Rodri and Zubimendi all available that is going to give every team at this tournament problems.
Fermin Lopez is not in it. Broken foot at the end of the season. He will watch from Spain while other people play in the tournament he should have been at.
Whether Rodri is properly himself after missing most of the club season is the question that follows Spain into every game they play. De la Fuente named him, which answers the fitness question to a degree. The tactical question, what Spain look like with a Rodri who is at 80 percent rather than 100, is harder to answer from the outside.
THE ARSENAL ANGLE
Raya, Zubimendi and Merino won the Premier League with Arsenal this season and all three are in this squad. Tuchel spent nine months watching them at close quarters because Arsenal were the team trying to beat his former club City to the title. He knows how all three play. He knows what Zubimendi does in the defensive midfield role and he knows what Merino offers when he comes into the game. Whether that familiarity is an advantage when England face Spain, if they face Spain, is one of the more interesting tactical questions of the tournament.
Whether Raya starts ahead of Unai Simon is something De la Fuente has not resolved publicly. Simon has been Spain’s goalkeeper for years. Raya has just had possibly the best season of his career. One of them spends the tournament on the bench and it will be the wrong decision whichever way it goes.
Zubimendi playing for Spain in the same tournament Rice plays for England, both of them as their team’s defensive midfield anchor, is the kind of fixture detail that makes a potential quarter-final more interesting before it has even been scheduled. They played on opposite sides of North London derbies this season. They might play against each other in a World Cup knockout game in July.
Cucurella starts at left-back, Chelsea, difficult club season, De la Fuente picks him anyway. Porro at right-back from Spurs. Both in from the first game.
For the full picture of who Tuchel is taking to face them, our England World Cup 2026 squad breakdown covers every selection and the thinking behind it, and every other confirmed squad in the tournament is tracked in our World Cup 2026 squad tracker.
THE ENGLAND PROBLEM
England and Spain cannot meet until the quarter-finals at the earliest. Group H for Spain, Group L for England, different sides of the draw, both expected to get through without too much trouble. If both do what they are supposed to do, the bracket brings them together in the last eight.
England have a specific problem with this Spain side. Yamal on Spain’s right against England’s left-back is the individual matchup that will keep Tuchel’s defensive coaches up at night. O’Reilly has that position in the squad, Livramento and Burn as alternatives. None of them have faced a player like Yamal in a competitive knockout game. Saka tracking back to help solves part of it. Not all of it.
Nico Williams on the other side scored in the Euro 2024 final. He has had one of the best seasons of any wide forward in European football this year. The two of them together, Yamal and Williams, is the forward combination that makes Spain the most frightening team in the draw for most of the 47 other nations.
BERLIN AND WHAT COMES NEXT
Spain beat England in Berlin last July with a goal six minutes from the end of a European Championship final. If both sides make the quarter-finals here, that becomes the context for what happens next. The last competitive meeting between the two. Oyarzabal’s goal. The walk off the pitch.
Tuchel watched Zubimendi and Merino play week after week this season. He knows this Spain side better than most. Whether any of that matters against Yamal and Nico Williams in a knockout game is the question that only the tournament itself can answer.
When Spain and England kick off their respective campaigns, our guide to the best ways to stream World Cup 2026 games live in the UK covers every broadcast option.