{"id":691961,"date":"2026-06-08T17:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T17:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/691961\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T17:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T17:29:09","slug":"world-cup-2026-marcus-rashford-is-dead-cert-for-me-to-start-for-england-says-theo-walcott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/691961\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Marcus Rashford is ‘dead cert for me’ to start for England, says Theo Walcott"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former England winger Theo Walcott says Marcus Rashford is the Three Lions player he is “most psyched about” at the upcoming World Cup.<\/p>\n

Rashford was left out of Gareth Southgate’s Euro 2024 squad and did not play for his country for 12 months between March 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

Re-introduced by Thomas Tuchel, he has featured in every Three Lions squad under the German other than in June 2025 when a hamstring injury ruled him out.<\/p>\n

A loan spell at Barcelona, where he scored 14 goals and registered 14 assists in 47 games for the La Liga champions, has revitalised the 28-year-old Manchester United forward’s career.<\/p>\n

He started England’s 1-0 friendly win<\/a> over New Zealand on Saturday and while Tuchel said there were “no hidden messages” within his first-half line-up, Walcott believes Rashford has to start at the World Cup.<\/p>\n

“Rashford this year has been outstanding,” Walcott said on The Wayne Rooney Show.<\/p>\n

“I’ve watched him quite a lot. I found the love of watching Barcelona again and took more of an interest with Rashford going out there. It’s been great for him.<\/p>\n

“He would be a dead cert to start for me. The way he’s played, that freedom, that enjoyment. We want to see that smile.”<\/p>\n

Rashford was England’s bright spark in the first half against New Zealand, creating five chances.<\/p>\n

“Rashford’s going to be a major part of this tournament,” Walcott added. “I’m looking forward to watching him. Out of all the players, I’m most psyched about him.<\/p>\n

“I think he’s brave to go abroad – it’s great when English players go. I wasn’t brave enough, but for him to do that shows good character.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England winger Theo Walcott says Marcus Rashford is the Three Lions player he is “most psyched about”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-691961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}