With 15 Gunners heading stateside, it was only natural that a few would be drawn together on the global stage.<\/p>\n
The first big showdown is in Group I, where Arsenal and Norway captain, Martin Odegaard, will come up against William Saliba’s France.<\/p>\n
In a group that also includes African giants Senegal, this big clash between Martin and Wilo could have huge implications as to who advances from this group.<\/p>\n
They will go toe-to-toe on June 26 at Gillette Stadium in Boston.<\/p>\n
A day before that, Piero Hincapie’s Ecuador will go up against Kai Havertz’s Germany in a mouthwatering clash in Group E.<\/p>\n
Kai has taken his end-of-season form into the national team, netting in a 2-1 win over hosts USA, with Piero’s Ecuador bagging victories over Guatemala and Saudi Arabia in the build-up. This match will take place at MetLife Stadium, New Jersey.<\/p>\n
Read below exactly when all of our Gunners are in group stage action!<\/em><\/p>\n \n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n Gunners will have a close eye on our 15 stars but there’s also plenty of Arsenal interest from former stars.<\/p>\n Saed Kolasinac is heading to the World Cup with Bosnia for the first time in 12 years, facing co-hosts Canada on the second day of competition. Saed is joined by Granit Xhaka in Group B as Switzerland and 2022 hosts Qatar complete the line-up.<\/p>\n Folarin Balogun is with co-hosts USA, leading the line in Group D, going up against Paraguay, Turkiye and Australia, who have selected ex-Gunner Mat Ryan.<\/p>\n Joining current star Viktor Gyokeres in Group F is Japan and former defender Takehiro Tomiyasu, who now plays for Ajax.<\/p>\n Kieran Tierney, who departed with a goal in his final game in 2025, is heading to the World Cup with Scotland, having netted in their showdown with Denmark in qualifying. KT will be joining Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Magalahes’ Brazil in Group C.<\/p>\n Slotting into a group with Hincapie’s Ecuador and Havertz’s Germany are the Ivory Coast, who have selected former Gunner Nicolas Pepe. The 31-year-old has 12 goals for his nation heading into the finals.<\/p>\n Emiliano Martinez will be hoping to get his hands of the World Cup once more as he goes again with Argentina. The defending champs have Austria, Algeria and newcomers Jordan in their group.<\/p>\n \n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n There are 16 venues across the US, Canada and Mexico for this expanded tournament from 32 teams to 48. <\/p>\n Some of those stadia might look familiar to our supporters, having played at a host of them during our tours of America in 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n Our 2-0 defeat against Manchester United took place at the MetLife Stadium, where the final of the World Cup will be played on Sunday, July 19.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, our thumping 5-3 victory over Barcelona in 2023 took place at the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Goals from Bukayo Saka, Kai Havertz, Fabio Vieira and a double from Leandro Trossard gave us the impressive victory that day. The SoFi Stadium will host the USA’s first match of the tournament against Paraguay.<\/p>\n We also played in the stadium a year later, beating Manchester United 2-1 thanks to goals from Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli. In the same summer, we headed to Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia to take on Liverpool. Kai Havertz found the net as we lost 2-1 to the Reds.<\/p>\n While some players won’t be wearing the usual numbers you see them donning week in week out at Arsenal, you can still get yourself a replica jersey with your favourite Gunner on the back of your national jersey.<\/p>\n For England, Bukayo Saka will be wearing his usual number 7. Declan Rice is wearing 4, Noni Madueke 20 and Eberechi Eze 21. For Spain, David Raya has number 1, Martin Zubimendi 18 and Mikel Merino 6.<\/p>\n Our last multi-represented nation is Brazil. Gabriel Magalhaes will be sporting the number 3 jersey, with Gabriel Martinelli in number 22. <\/p>\n France’s William Saliba is 17, Martin Odegaard will wear number 10 for Norway, Kai Havertz is Germany’s number 7, Piero Hincapie will wear number 3 for Ecuador, Leandro Trossard is number 10 for Belgium and Viktor Gyokeres will be wearing number 17 for Sweden.<\/p>\n You’ll be in familiar surroundings if you’re tuning into World Cup matches in the UK, with a string of ex-players dominating the commentary boxes and pundits’ sofas.<\/p>\n Former Gunner Alex Scott is one of the presenters for the BBC, and she’ll be joined by former teammate, Ellen White, who will be a pundit in North America. <\/p>\n Other former Arsenal representatives on the BBC include Invincible, Gael Clichy, and former striker Olivier Giroud, who won the World Cup in 2018. Another Invincible, Martin Keown, will be on commentary duties for the broadcaster.<\/p>\n Over on ITV, Ian Wright will be heading to his fourth World Cup as a pundit for the channel. He’s joined by three-time Premier League winner Patrick Vieira and Karen Carney to complete our hat-trick of Gunner representation.<\/p>\n Much like his defensive partner on the BBC, Lee Dixon will be in the commentary booth for ITV.<\/p>\n All 15 of our players will hope to reach the final at MetLife Stadium on July 19, and add their names to our roll of honour when it comes to the tournament.<\/p>\n Seven players have returned to the club as world champions, starting with George Eastham who was a member of England\u2019s 1966 squad, although he didn\u2019t feature in the tournament.<\/p>\n The first to play in a final were Emmanuel Petit and Patrick Vieira in 1998, with the former the only player to net in the showpiece during his time as a Gunner.<\/p>\n 12 years later, Cesc Fabregas became our first home-grown victor when he helped Spain triumph, while four years later we had a hat-trick of gold medallists when Mesut Ozil, Per Mertesacker and Lukas Podolski all tasted glory for Germany.<\/p>\n Can any of our players add their names to this illustrious list?<\/p>\n \n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the shortest gap between World Cups in history, the 23rd edition is almost here as Gunners around the globe get set to tune in to see if their nation can go all the way in Mexico, Canada and the USA. Just over 1,260 days have passed since Argentina lifted the famous trophy in Qatar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} When will our stars be in World Cup action? <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\nFORMER GUNNERS<\/h2>\n
Every Arsenal player called up for 2026 World Cup <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\nFAMILIAR SURROUNDINGS<\/h2>\n
GOT YOUR NUMBER<\/h2>\n
ON THE BOX<\/h2>\n
JOINING THE GREATS<\/h2>\n
Quiz: First to play for us from each country <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n