Uruguay national football team players: Forlán’s first 26, and why none of them play in Uruguay

The current Uruguay national football team players are the 26 Diego Forlán picked for his first window as interim coach: a tour of Japan, South Korea and India that ends at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on 6 October. Between them they carry 729 caps and 63 international goals, and not one of the 26 plays club football in Uruguay. Federico Valverde was named and then ruled out injured, so the squad that lands in India is built around José María Giménez, Ronald Araújo, Rodrigo Bentancur, Giorgian de Arrascaeta and Darwin Núñez.

Uruguay’s full squad for Japan, South Korea and India

Caps and goals below are as they stood after the 4-1 win in Seoul on 28 September, the second of the three matches. Clubs are where each player is registered this season, including the three who are out on loan.

Player	Pos	Club	Caps	Goals
Santiago Mele	GK	Independiente	9	0
Thiago Cardozo	GK	Belgrano	0	0
Cristopher Fiermarin	GK	Atlético Bucaramanga	3	0
José María Giménez (c)	DF	Deportivo La Coruña (loan)	100	8
Sebastián Cáceres	DF	Celta Vigo	27	0
Ronald Araújo	DF	Liverpool (loan)	29	1
Nahitan Nández	DF	Al-Qadsiah	73	0
Guillermo Varela	DF	Flamengo	32	0
Mathías Olivera	DF	Napoli	40	2
Santiago Mouriño	DF	Villarreal	1	0
Joaquín Piquerez	DF	Palmeiras	21	0
Juan Rodríguez	DF	Cagliari	0	0
Juan Manuel Sanabria	DF	Real Salt Lake	9	1
Facundo Bernal	MF	Real Betis	1	0
Rodrigo Bentancur	MF	Tottenham Hotspur	79	3
Giorgian de Arrascaeta	MF	Flamengo	62	14
Facundo Pellistri	MF	Panathinaikos	40	2
Lucas Torreira	MF	Galatasaray	42	0
Emiliano Martínez	MF	Palmeiras	10	0
Rodrigo Zalazar	MF	Sporting CP	10	2
Brian Rodríguez	MF	América	37	4
Maximiliano Araújo	MF	Sporting CP	33	6
Rodrigo Aguirre	FW	Tigres UANL	12	3
Darwin Núñez	FW	Al-Diriyah (loan)	43	15
Federico Viñas	FW	Toluca	15	2
Martín Satriano	FW	Getafe	1	0

That is three goalkeepers, ten defenders, nine midfielders and four forwards. Emiliano Martínez is the Palmeiras midfielder, not the Argentina goalkeeper of the same name, and he is in the squad because Valverde is not.

What the numbers say about this squad

Add the columns up and a few things stand out that a list of names hides.

Four players hold 43 per cent of the experience. Giménez (100), Bentancur (79), Nández (73) and de Arrascaeta (62) account for 314 of the 729 caps. Nobody else in the squad has reached 45. Five players have one cap or none at all: Cardozo, Juan Rodríguez, Mouriño, Bernal and Satriano.

Two men have scored almost half the goals. Núñez’s 15 and de Arrascaeta’s 14 make 29 of the squad’s 63. The four forwards have 20 between them, and the ten defenders have 12, eight of those belonging to Giménez.

And nobody plays at home. The 26 are spread across 12 countries’ leagues, and Uruguay’s own Primera División is not one of them.

Where they play	Players
Spain	5
Brazil	4
Mexico	3
Argentina, England, Italy, Portugal, Saudi Arabia	2 each
Colombia, Greece, Turkey, United States	1 each

Exactly half the squad, 13 players, are at European clubs. Seven play elsewhere in South America, four in North America and two in Saudi Arabia. The average age on the day of the India match is 27.6. Guillermo Varela is the oldest at 33, Juan Rodríguez the youngest at 21.

Uruguay’s key players

José María Giménez is the captain, and against Japan on 24 September he became the ninth Uruguayan to reach 100 caps. He came off the bench for Ronald Araújo in the second half, and Bentancur handed him the armband. He spent 13 years at Atlético Madrid and moved on loan to newly promoted Deportivo La Coruña on deadline day in September.

Ronald Araújo is the other half of the first-choice centre-back pairing, and his club situation changed over the summer too. Liverpool took the Barcelona captain on a season-long loan with an option to buy reported at €55 million.

Rodrigo Bentancur sits in front of the defence with Lucas Torreira. With 79 caps he is the second most experienced player in the squad, and he started the window as captain while Giménez was on the bench.

Giorgian de Arrascaeta is the creator. The Flamengo playmaker is 32, plays behind the striker, and has 14 international goals, which is a high return for a number ten. He scored the second in Seoul.

Darwin Núñez leads the line and is the top scorer in the group. His two goals against South Korea were his first for Uruguay since June 2024. He is on a season-long loan at Al-Diriyah, the newly promoted Saudi club, from Al-Hilal.

Maximiliano Araújo of Sporting CP is the one to watch on the left. He scored the equaliser in the 3-1 defeat in Japan and started again in Seoul. He also scored Uruguay’s late equaliser against Saudi Arabia in their World Cup opener.

Who is missing, and why

Federico Valverde would have been the third most capped player in this squad, with 76. He suffered a grade 3 sprain of his left ankle in the Madrid derby, and Forlán left him in Spain rather than put him on a long-haul flight. Emiliano Martínez came in.

Five of the 26 players Marcelo Bielsa took to the World Cup were left out of Forlán’s preliminary list altogether: goalkeepers Fernando Muslera and Sergio Rochet, defender Matías Viña, and midfielders Manuel Ugarte and Nicolás de la Cruz. Muslera, with 137 caps, is the third most capped player Uruguay have ever had.

Luis Suárez is not in it either. Uruguay’s record scorer, with 69 goals, retired from international football in September 2024 and has not been recalled.

How Forlán’s first two games went

Forlán took over on an interim basis after Bielsa left following the group-stage exit at the 2026 World Cup, where Uruguay drew with Saudi Arabia (1-1) and Cape Verde (2-2) and lost 1-0 to Spain. He is coaching the under-20 side at the same time.

Date	Opponent	Venue	Result
24 Sep	Japan	Miyagi	L 1-3
28 Sep	South Korea	Seoul	W 4-1
6 Oct	India	Kolkata	To play

The defeat in Miyagi turned late. Maximiliano Araújo had cancelled out Kuryu Matsuki’s early goal, and the score stayed 1-1 until stoppage time, when Kento Shiogai and Ayase Ueda scored for Japan. Four days later the same core was far sharper against South Korea: Núñez twice, de Arrascaeta and a Kim Min-jae own goal, with South Korea’s reply coming too late to matter.

Have Uruguay played India before?

Once, and in the same city. On 25 February 1982, in the Nehru Cup at Eden Gardens, Uruguay beat India 3-1. Jorge da Silva scored twice and Mario Saralegui added the third, with Manas Bhattacharjee getting India’s goal. Uruguay went on to win the tournament, beating China 2-0 in the final.

The second meeting, 44 years later, comes three days after Brazil beat India 4-0 at the same Salt Lake ground. Uruguay are 20th in the FIFA ranking, and Khalid Jamil’s India squad will be meeting most of these players for the first time. There is one familiar face on the touchline. Forlán played a season for Mumbai City in the Indian Super League in 2016.

Uruguay’s honours

For a country of under four million people, the trophy record is absurd.

Competition	Titles	Years
FIFA World Cup	2	1930, 1950
Olympic football	2	1924, 1928
Copa América	15	last won 2011

The all-time records belong to players who have moved on. Diego Godín has the most caps, 161, and Suárez the most goals. Forlán himself is seventh on the caps list with 112 and third among the scorers with 36.

For the build-up to the Kolkata friendly, read how India ended up hosting Panama, Brazil and Uruguay in one window, and how Forlán’s 46-man preliminary list was cut down to this 26. We have the same squad breakdown for Saudi Arabia, Uruguay’s first opponents at the World Cup.

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