Harry Maguire’s mum had two words for it as news of Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup England squad began to eke out on Thursday afternoon.
‘Absolutely disgusted,’ said Zoe Maguire on the X social media platform.
As it transpired, the Manchester United defender’s omission – flawed as it is – was only the start of it.
Ivan Toney. Two more words that nobody expected to be saying three weeks ahead of this summer’s tournament in America.
Chat about the former Brentford striker’s possible inclusion in Friday’s party of 26 had been in the air all week but some stories just seem too far-fetched to be true. Toney, after all, has only been called up once by Tuchel – a year ago for the games against Andorra and Senegal – and was given a total of three minutes as a substitute.
Yet he will be on the plane for the United States in a little over a week, a manifestation of the England manager’s hardening belief that set pieces and direct football will play a huge part in determining matches at a World Cup that – due to the climatic conditions – will at times be played at a little more than walking pace.
Harry Maguire has been omitted from Thomas Tuchel’s 26-man England World Cup squad
Ivan Toney, who is playing in Saudi Arabia, has earned a shock call-up to the England squad
It’s an extraordinary decision by Tuchel but one that he has been given room to make by the fact that three extra players will travel to the USA for the tournament. A tournament squad traditionally comprises 23. The debate has long been about who would serve as understudy to captain Harry Kane at No 9. Now, with Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins expected to be included when Friday’s squad is revealed at 10am, it transpires there are to be two.
As for Maguire and his family, they were not slow to make their feelings known after receiving the news that the 33-year-old United defender would not be in the party. Maguire himself declared himself ‘shocked and gutted’ by the decision, but the truth is that he had seen it coming.
Selected for the March friendlies by Tuchel, Maguire is understood to have seen the writing on the wall once his manager told reporters an hour after the defeat by Japan that the former Leicester defender was still some way down the queue for a place.
While Toney feels like a luxury pick that may or may not pay off – the Al-Ahli striker is a flawless penalty taker – the call to leave Maguire at home feels like a simple mistake. Tuchel has preached the values of traditional English football ever since he accepted the post in the autumn of 2024 and during the uptick in form that followed Michael Carrick’s arrival at United in January, Maguire has ticked every box.
To decide that Newcastle’s Dan Burn or even Bayer Leverkusen’s Jarell Quansah are better nuts and bolts defenders than Maguire is quite a stretch. Tuchel places a high value on culture and he is right to do so. If it goes well, this will be a long tournament for England.
Burn ticks that box and so does midfielder Jordan Henderson. Both have effectively been in this squad for 12 months. But if Maguire doesn’t score highly on this metric then he should never have been selected in March. The more one thinks about this one, the less sense it makes.
There will be disappointment felt among other defensive contenders. Tuchel rightly has confidence in the burgeoning talents of Tino Livramento and Nico O’Reilly – the Manchester City star is pencilled in to start against Croatia in Dallas on June 17 – but Luke Shaw and in particular Lewis Hall of Newcastle are very good players to leave behind.
Tuchel’s decision to not take Maguire makes less sense the more you think about it
Elsewhere there is some sadness. Remember back in the Lee Carsley interim era post Euro 2024 when we talked about whether it was possible to fit the golden talents of Cole Palmer, Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham into the same England team?
Carsley tried it once – against Greece in the Nations League at Wembley – and it was a disaster. But the fact Tuchel will take an expanded group to America with neither Foden or Palmer involved is something nobody would have thought possible as little as 12 months ago.
Foden’s career at City hit the buffers a while ago and there are known to be some complex personal reasons behind that. Palmer, meanwhile, has been troubled by injury and the fact he plays for the country’s most dysfunctional football club.
There had been some thought given to taking Foden on the back of his versatility. Tuchel even talked fancifully of playing him as a No 9. Nobody ever really took that one seriously and his failure to play regularly for City has ultimately cut him off at the knees.
We should all be invested in the Palmer and Foden stories. For years we cried out for players so technically masterful. The fact that they are finding consistency elusive in the land of giants that is the modern Premier League should give us pause for thought about the direction of our game.
Tuchel’s World Cup squad does not point to artistry, meanwhile. It is not short on technical prowess but it stands as a monument to physical power.
The German has known for a while how he expects this tournament to play out. A tournament of ‘moments’ is how his assistant Anthony Barry has described it and the England coaching staff expect many of them to come from corners and long throw-ins. As opponents struggle in the heat towards the end of tight games, expect the England manager to send the artillery on.
Toney has seven England caps to his name and one goal, a penalty in a friendly against Belgium more than two years ago. Gareth Southgate didn’t hugely care for him and neither, we thought, did Tuchel.
Managers should never close their eyes to change and to fresh possibility and circumstance, though, and Tuchel has never been one to lack the courage of his convictions. Maybe he is a visionary. Or maybe he has just made a mess of it.
As ever, the truth of it will become apparent out on the grass.
