Premier League most represented at 2026 World Cup, Ronaldo oldest player

The Premier League is the championship most represented at the upcoming World Cup, while Cristiano Ronaldo is the oldest player to take part in the next edition of the tournament. These are some of the figures released by FIFA regarding the upcoming World Cup.

The Premier League has a total of 200 players active at club level in England. This is followed by Germany with 109, France and Spain with 86 each, Italy with 70, Saudi Arabia with 49, Turkey with 45, the United States with 42, the Netherlands with 46, Brazil with 36 and Portugal with 36.

Cristiano Ronaldo, who will be 41 years and 126 days old when the tournament starts, is the fourth oldest player to play in a World Cup. If he plays, he will become the fourth oldest player ever to play a World Cup match, behind Roger Milla (42 years old), Faryd Mondragon (43) and Essam El Hadary (45).

Ronaldo is followed by Mexican goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa (40), Croatian midfielder Luka Modric (40), Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko (40), German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer (40) and Cape Verdean goalkeeper Vozinha.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia have the most players active in their own league, with 25 players each. The Maroons' left back, Homam Ahmed, plays in Spain for Cultural Leonesa, while the Groene Valken's right back, Saud Abdulhamid, plays for Lens in France.

There will be 22 world champions at the 2026 World Cup. Manuel Neuer won with Germany in Brazil in 2014, while Ousmane Dembélé, Lucas Hernández, N'Golo Kanté and Kylian Mbappé helped France win the title in Russia in 2018.

Lionel Scaloni has confirmed 17 players who won the title with Argentina at Qatar 2022, including Thiago Almada, Julian Alvarez, Rodrigo De Paul, Enzo Fernandez, Alexis Mac Allister, Emiliano Martinez, Lautaro Martinez, Lisandro Martinez, Lionel Messi, Nahuel Molina, Gonzalo Montiel, Nicolas Otamendi, Exequiel Palacios, Leandro Paredes, Cristian Romero, Geronimo Rulli and Nicolas Tagliafico.

Manchester City is the club with the most representatives, namely 19 players, followed by Bayern Munich (18), Arsenal (16), Paris Saint-Germain (16), Barcelona (15), Al Hilal (12), Atletico Madrid (12), Crystal Palace (12), Manchester United (12), Borussia Dortmund (11), Galatasaray (11) and Liverpool (11).

Seventeen-year-old Gilberto Mora is the youngest player at the tournament. His Mexican teammate Guillermo Ochoa was already at the World Cup before Mora was born. If Mora plays, he will become the youngest player from the CONCACAF region to play a World Cup match, surpassing record holder Manuel Rosas, who was 18 years old during Uruguay 1930.

Should Mora play in Mexico's opening match against South Africa, he will become the sixth youngest player ever in the tournament, after seventeen-year-olds Pelé, Salomon Olembe, Femi Opabunmi, Samuel Eto'o and the record of Norman Whiteside.

Lionel Messi is the player with the most goals at the 2026 World Cup, with 13 goals. He is followed by the Frenchman Kylian Mbappé (12), the English Harry Kane (8), the Brazilian Neymar (8) and the Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo (8). The record for most goals scoredworld championships is in the name of the German Miroslav Klose (16).

Lionel Messi, Guillermo Ochoa and Cristiano Ronaldo are participating in their sixth World Cup, a record. They shared the record of five editions with Antonio Carbajal, Lothar Matthäus, Gigi Buffon, Rafa Márquez and Andrés Guardado. Luka Modric, Yuto Nagatomo and Manuel Neuer will participate in their fifth World Cup in North America. Messi and Ronaldo become the first men ever to play in six World Cups, while Ochoa never played in Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010.

Austrian goalkeeper Florian Wiegele, with a height of 2.05 meters, is the tallest player ever selected for a World Cup. Dutch goalkeeper Andries Noppert had set the record with 2.03 meters at Qatar 2022. The tallest players in the 2026 final after him are English defender Dan Burn (2.01 meters), Colombian goalkeeper Alvaro Montero (2.01 meters) and Bosnian central defender Stjepan Radeljic (2.01 meters).

Panamanian forward Cesar Yanis is the smallest player at the tournament, with a height of 1.60 meters. He is followed by the Curaçao attacker Jeremy Antonisse, who measures 1.64 meters. There is no less than 41 centimeters between Burn and Yanis, while Panama and England will play against each other in the last match of Group L.

The largest height difference between players on the pitch at the same time in a World Cup match was 39 centimetres, between Serbia's Nikola Zigic and Ivory Coast's Bakary Kone during Germany 2006.