{"id":727008,"date":"2026-06-26T10:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/727008\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T10:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:17:11","slug":"world-cup-2026-englands-current-last-32-opponents-declan-rice-reece-james-update-eze-quotes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/727008\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: England’s current last 32 opponents, Declan Rice, Reece James update & Eze quotes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuchel had hoped Livramento could be ready-made replacementpublished at 10:45 BST<\/p>\n

10:45 BST<\/p>\n

Panama v England (Sat, 22:00 BST)<\/p>\n

\"ThomasImage source, Getty Images<\/p>\n

Thomas Tuchel’s original squad included two ready-made replacements for Reece James – Djed Spence and Newcastle United full-back Tino Livramento. <\/p>\n

Chelsea’s James has suffered with injuries throughout his career, but Tuchel was keen to include the 26-year-old defender despite the possibility that he may not be able to play every game at this World Cup. <\/p>\n

With Spence and Livramento in the squad, that gave the England manager plenty of cover. <\/p>\n

But Livramento, who, like Spence, can play at both right-back and left-back, had also been plagued by injuries this season. <\/p>\n

When the former Southampton defender had to pull out of the World Cup the day before England’s opening game, that highlighted a potential source of weakness in Tuchel’s squad selection. <\/p>\n

There were cries for him to pick another specialist full-back as Livramento’s replacement, with Newcastle left-back Lewis Hall at the top many fans’ list, closely followed by Real Madrid’s Trent Alexander-Arnold. <\/p>\n

However, Tuchel opted instead to bring in Chelsea’s 26-year-old centre-back Trevoh Chalobah. <\/p>\n

When asked to explain this decision, the German said that Chalobah’s inclusion would “free up” Jarell Quansah to deputise at full-back. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuchel had hoped Livramento could be ready-made replacementpublished at 10:45 BST 10:45 BST Panama v England (Sat, 22:00…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-727008","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\/727008","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=727008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}