With squad announcements coming thick and fast, Liverpool’s most important players are about to carry their club form onto the biggest stage in football, and the outright market is already factoring in their influence.
There is a particular kind of bittersweet that accompanies a Liverpool supporter in the weeks before a World Cup. The season is nearly done, long goodbyes are being said on the Kop, and before any of it fully settles, the best players in Arne Slot’s squad are already being called up by somebody else. This summer is no different, and in some ways it carries a sharper edge than most.
Mohamed Salah confirmed as Egypt’s captain. Alexis Mac Allister named in Argentina’s preliminary 55-man pool. The 2026 FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on 11 June across the United States, Canada and Mexico, will feature Anfield’s fingerprints all over it — even as Liverpool themselves stand on the outside, watching from home.
alah’s last dance
The announcement on Thursday that Salah will captain Egypt in North America had been expected for months, but that did not diminish the weight of it.
The 33-year-old has 67 goals in 116 appearances for his country and sits two strikes shy of Hossam Hassan’s all-time national record of 69. Egypt face Belgium, Iran and New Zealand in Group G, a draw that gives them a credible path to the knockout rounds for the first time in the country’s World Cup history.
Salah scored twice at the 2018 tournament in Russia, operating largely in isolation from a side that did not make it past the group stage. This time he will be supported by Omar Marmoush, whose season with Manchester City represents a step up in quality around him.
Whether that changes Egypt’s ceiling is the question the market has not fully answered yet, but the personal narrative is hard to ignore. For a player set to leave Anfield after nine years, the World Cup represents the one major honour still missing from a remarkable career.
“The weight Salah carries for Egypt is unlike almost anything else in international football. He registered two goals from three group-stage matches in 2018 and Egypt were still eliminated with one point. He needs those around him to contribute more than nine goals between them if Egypt are going to progress from this group.”
Mac Allister, Argentina, and the defending champions
While Salah’s tournament story is shaped by absence of reward, Alexis Mac Allister arrives in North America as a world champion. The Liverpool midfielder was a crucial figure in Argentina’s 2022 success in Qatar, contributing a goal and an assist across six matches. His tactical flexibility, operating as a press-resistant six or a more advanced box-to-box presence, gave Lionel Scaloni options that few other squads could replicate.
Argentina enter the tournament priced around 8/1 with UK bookmakers, sitting fourth in the outright market behind Spain, France and England. That ranking reflects the uncertainty around Lionel Messi’s involvement more than any genuine deterioration in squad quality. Mac Allister’s form for Liverpool across the 2025-26 season, despite the club’s mixed second half of the campaign, has been consistent enough to confirm his place in Scaloni’s plans.
For a full breakdown of which Liverpool players are heading to North America, the readliverpoolfc.com World Cup squad guide has the complete picture.
“Mac Allister covered 11.4 kilometres per 90 minutes across Liverpool’s last eight Premier League matches,” one observer told Freebets.com, whose independent guide to the odds to win the FIFA World Cup 2026 tracks how squad news has shifted the outright market over recent weeks. “That pressing output over distance is what makes him so difficult to replace in this Argentina system. He is not a luxury midfielder.”
Where the outright market stands
Spain lead the betting at 9/2, with France at 5/1, England at 6/1 and Brazil and Argentina both around 8/1. The France price reflects a squad built around Kylian Mbappé, who has 12 World Cup goals in 14 appearances and remains the FIFA Golden Boot favourite heading into the tournament. Spain’s position at the head of the market owes much to squad depth and the continued development of Lamine Yamal, though a hamstring scare earlier in May briefly shortened France’s price and widened Spain’s.
England, managed by Thomas Tuchel, sit at 6/1 after a qualifying campaign that produced eight wins from eight. Tuchel’s squad, named on Friday, included former Liverpool men Jordan Henderson and Jarrell Quansah but no current first-team players from Anfield, a fact that landed with particular sharpness given the club’s situation this week. Trent Alexander-Arnold, having moved to Real Madrid last summer, is absent through injury.
The Liverpool lens on this tournament
Supporters at Anfield will watch this World Cup with a complicated kind of investment. Salah’s final chapter with Egypt is a story in its own right. Mac Allister carrying the number he won in Qatar back to North America brings another thread. And beyond those two, there are players from other Liverpool squads scattered across the 48 nations competing, each one carrying form shaped in part by what happens at Anfield over the course of a season.
The expanded format, 48 teams and 104 matches across three countries, means the tournament runs from June to 19 July. For Liverpool fans, the watching begins three weeks from now, and the rooting interests were never going to be simple
