England national football team players: Tuchel’s 25, the 7-0 in Rijeka and Kane level with Shilton

The England national football team players who finished third at the World Cup had four games to show what came next, and the answer was mostly good. Thomas Tuchel used 23 players across a Nations League window that opened with a 3-2 defeat at home to Spain on 26 September and closed with three wins, 12 goals and no goals conceded. One of those wins was 7-0 in Rijeka, the heaviest defeat Croatia have ever suffered. Here is everyone who was in the camp, where they play, their caps and goals as of 6 October, and what England need from November.

England’s squad for the Nations League

Tuchel named 27 players on 18 September and lost five of them to injury inside four days: Declan Rice, Cole Palmer, Marcus Rashford, Kobbie Mainoo and Tino Livramento. James Garner and Morgan Gibbs-White came in. Nico O’Reilly went home on 1 October, Rico Lewis was added on 4 October, and Alex Scott and Ezri Konsa withdrew a day later. That makes 25 players who were with the squad at some point, and the table lists all of them. Caps and goals are as of the 3-0 win over Czechia on 6 October; the last column is appearances in the window.

Pos	Player	Caps	Goals	Club	Apps
GK	Jordan Pickford	93	0	Everton	2
GK	James Trafford	4	0	Leeds United	2
GK	Jason Steele	0	0	Brighton & Hove Albion	0
DF	Trent Alexander-Arnold	36	4	Real Madrid	2
DF	Marc Guéhi	41	1	Manchester City	4
DF	Ezri Konsa	30	2	Arsenal	2
DF	Nico O’Reilly	13	0	Manchester City	1
DF	Jarell Quansah	9	0	Bayer Leverkusen	3
DF	Lewis Hall	7	0	Newcastle United	3
DF	Rico Lewis	5	0	Manchester City	0
DF	Trevoh Chalobah	3	0	Como	1
DF	Jarrad Branthwaite	3	0	Everton	2
MF	Jude Bellingham	60	14	Real Madrid	4
MF	Elliot Anderson	21	0	Manchester City	4
MF	Myles Lewis-Skelly	10	1	Arsenal	4
MF	Morgan Gibbs-White	10	0	Nottingham Forest	4
MF	James Garner	5	0	Everton	3
MF	Alex Scott	2	0	Bournemouth	2
FW	Harry Kane (c)	125	91	Bayern Munich	4
FW	Bukayo Saka	59	19	Arsenal	3
FW	Anthony Gordon	28	7	Barcelona	3
FW	Morgan Rogers	26	2	Chelsea	4
FW	Eberechi Eze	25	3	Arsenal	3
FW	Dominic Calvert-Lewin	14	4	Leeds United	2
FW	Rio Ngumoha	3	0	Liverpool	2

The column that stands out is the goals one. The 25 have scored 148 times for England between them, and 91 of those belong to Kane. The other 24 have 57. Fourteen of the 25 have never scored for their country, and Kane is the only one with a hundred caps.

How did England do in the Nations League window?

Date	Match	Result	England scorers
26 September	England v Spain, Wembley	Lost 2-3	Gordon, Kane
29 September	Czechia v England, Prague	Won 2-0	Gordon, Kane
3 October	Croatia v England, Rijeka	Won 7-0	Kane 2, Saka 2, Bellingham, Gordon, Rogers
6 October	England v Czechia, Wembley	Won 3-0	Kane 2, Coufal own goal

The opener went wrong inside two minutes. Lamine Yamal took the ball off Marc Guéhi and scored, Anthony Gordon and Kane turned it round before half-time, and Kane then missed a penalty with England 2-1 up. Álex Baena and Mikel Oyarzabal won it for Spain. Our report from Wembley has the detail.

After that England did not concede again. In Prague Czechia lost Pavel Sulc to a red card after 25 minutes, and Trent Alexander-Arnold, making his first England start in about two years, crossed for Gordon to head the first two minutes after half-time. Kane added the second (our report). Rio Ngumoha, 18, and Alex Scott came off the bench that night, Scott for his first cap.

Rijeka was the outlier. UEFA had shut Croatia’s supporters out of the ground, the crowd was mostly schoolchildren, and England were 4-0 up at half-time. Kane and Bukayo Saka scored twice each, and Jude Bellingham finished with a goal and three assists. Croatia’s previous worst result was a 6-0 defeat by Spain in 2018 (our report from Rijeka). Back at Wembley three days later Kane had a hand in all three goals against Czechia, the first an own goal by Vladimír Coufal from his cross, and scored the other two (report).

Across the four games England scored 14 and conceded three. Tuchel made 20 substitutions, five in each match, and every outfield player who stayed in the camp got on the pitch except Rico Lewis. Jason Steele was the third goalkeeper throughout and did not play.

Where do England stand in their Nations League group?

Team	P	W	D	L	GD	Pts
Spain	4	4	0	0	+7	12
England	4	3	0	1	+11	9
Croatia	4	1	0	3	-10	3
Czechia	4	0	0	4	-8	0

Spain have already qualified for the quarter-finals. England are second on nine points, and one more point from their last two games is enough to join them, because Croatia can reach nine at most and Czechia six. The top two in each League A group go into two-legged quarter-finals in March 2027, and the four winners go on to the Finals in June.

Losing at home to the world champions was no disgrace. What came after it told Tuchel more: three wins and three clean sheets in a row. England’s goal difference is also better than Spain’s by four, so the top of the group is not settled yet either. Spain host England in the last game on 15 November.

Who are England’s key players?

Harry Kane, by a distance that keeps growing. He scored six of England’s 14 goals in the window, and the two against Czechia came in his 125th match, which puts him level with Peter Shilton on the England men’s appearance record that has stood since 1990. He is 33, a Bayern Munich player, and has 91 international goals. If he plays against Croatia on 12 November, the record is his outright.

Anthony Gordon scored in each of the first three games, which took him to seven goals in 28 caps. He moved from Newcastle to Barcelona in the summer and started three of the four games. Bellingham, now on 60 caps and 14 goals, set up four goals in the window as well as scoring one, and he is still only 23.

Saka’s two in Rijeka took him to 19 England goals, the same number as Rashford. Elliot Anderson and Guéhi started all four games, as Kane did. Behind them, Alexander-Arnold is the returning name worth watching. He started twice, set up Gordon’s goal in Prague, and now has 36 caps.

Who is new, and who is missing?

Fourteen of the 25 were at the World Cup. The other 11 were not, and they say most about where Tuchel is looking: Lewis Hall started three games, Myles Lewis-Skelly played in all four, and Gibbs-White came off the bench in all four after arriving as a replacement. Jarrad Branthwaite, Garner, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Ngumoha, Scott, Steele and Rico Lewis complete the list. Ngumoha, born in August 2008, is the youngest.

Some of the absences are bigger than the call-ups. Rice is the vice-captain and has 80 caps, and Rashford has 19 goals; both were among the five who withdrew before the Spain game. John Stones, Jordan Henderson, Reece James, Ollie Watkins and Dean Henderson, all World Cup players, were not named at all.

Who is England’s captain and manager?

Kane is captain and Rice is vice-captain. Thomas Tuchel is the manager and is under contract until the end of Euro 2028, an extension the Football Association announced on 12 February 2026, months before the World Cup.

When do England play next?

Date	Match	Venue	Kick-off (IST)
Thursday 12 November	England v Croatia	Wembley, London	1:15am, Friday 13 November
Sunday 15 November	Spain v England	Madrid	To be confirmed

The Croatia game is the one with the milestone attached. Kane needs one appearance to pass Shilton, and a draw would send England through. The trip to Madrid three days later decides who wins the group, which matters for the quarter-final draw: group winners are seeded and play the second leg at home.

England’s World Cup record

England have won the World Cup once, at home in 1966. In North America this summer they reached the semi-finals and lost 2-1 to Argentina in Atlanta, then beat France 6-4 in the third-place play-off in Miami. Third is the highest they have finished at a World Cup held outside England, and the 6-4 was their first win in a third-place play-off at the third attempt, after defeats to Italy in 1990 and Belgium in 2018.

For the rest of the group, see our guides to the Spain squad that beat England at Wembley and the Croatia squad they host on 12 November. Our France and Germany pages cover two more of Europe’s contenders.

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