Thomas Tuchel has already confirmed 16 players for England's 26-man World Cup squad in 2026

England boss Thomas Tuchel has revealed that he has already picked 16 players for his 2026 World Cup squad.

After Gareth Southgate's departure on the back of EURO 2024, former Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint Germain manager Tuchel was appointed as England's new head coach.

Since his appointment, Tuchel won his first three matches in charge, against Albania, Latvia and Andorra.

After naming his most recent squad, Tuchel was quizzed on his World Cup squad selection.

Each team will be allowed to take 26 players to the tournament, and the German has confirmed that 16 spaces have been filled.

He said: "I have to take a guess, I would say 16, maybe. But it's just a guess, maybe it's less, maybe it's more. We need a bit of time. We still have time."

After England's narrow 1-0 win over Andorra last week, Tuchel was critical of his players' performance.

He said: "I’m not happy with the performance, of course. We started quite well in the first 25 minutes. This was the only part where I had the feeling it was a matter of time.

"We created a lot of chances, half-chances, and a lot of set-pieces. I felt we would score and keep going, but we completely lost the momentum."

Thomas Tuchel is aiming to win the 2026 World Cup with England. Image: Getty

Tuchel continued: "We couldn’t get it back through the whole first half. We got a little bit of it back in the first 15 minutes of the second half, and then ended up in a period that was by far not good enough, with a lack of urgency, lack of quality, and lack of energy.

"We can just admit it: that’s not what we expect from us. We need to do better. We must look at it in detail and address it directly and do better on Tuesday [against Senegal]."

On Tuesday night, England took on Senegal at the City Ground. Harry Kane gave the hosts the lead before Ismaila Sarr equalised in the 40th minute.

In the second half, the Three Lions fell behind for the first time under Tuchel as Habib Diarra scored to make it 2-1 to Senegal in the 62nd minute.

Tuchel's men had a goal ruled out by VAR in the closing stages before Senegal made it 3-1 through Cheikh Sabaly.