WORLD CUP 2026: BIG ENGLAND PREVIEW
The Game
The Times
3.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2026
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
World Cup 2026 is nearly here! Can England win it?
Has Tuchel picked the right squad, what is England's base camp like and what will be England's biggest challenge?
With inside knowledge from within the England camp our team cover it all - from which players will be most affected by the heat and who can cover at number six to secret England tactics and who starts at number ten.
Join Times Sports Editor Tom Clarke, and the Times Sport team who will be with England throughout the tournament: Matt Lawton, Jonathan Northcroft and Hamzah Khalique-Loonat as they discuss England's starting IX, how far they'll go and the choices facing Thomas Tuchel.
We'll be here every single day throughout the tournament with your essential World Cup daily briefing - please do join us.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the game. |
| 0:06.3 | Football podcasts from The Times and Sunday Times. |
| 0:08.6 | This is the first of several special World Cup preview shows, and this one is all about England. |
| 0:13.9 | Has Thomas Tuchel picked the right squad? Who will be the key players? |
| 0:17.3 | What is the US base and backroom team like? |
| 0:19.7 | And crucially, can they win it? |
| 0:22.2 | I'm Tom Clark and joining me today to discuss all of that. We have the Timesport team who |
| 0:26.3 | will be with England for the whole tournament. We have the chief football correspondent for |
| 0:30.4 | the Sunday Times and Times and current football journalist of the year. It's Johnny Northcroft, |
| 0:34.8 | the Chief Sports correspondent for the Times and five times sports |
| 0:37.9 | news reporter of the year, Matt Lawton, and the football reporter and current sports data |
| 0:42.5 | journalist of the year. It's Hamza Khalik Loonat team. Welcome to the studio. Welcome to YouTube |
| 0:48.2 | if you're watching at Timesport. Let's just get a sense before we dive into the analysis all |
| 0:53.1 | about England. How excited |
| 0:54.7 | are we about this? We've got a mixed bag with you three. Hamza, this is your first World Cup |
| 0:59.4 | on the ground. Then Johnny and Matt, this is your eighth. Is that right? Going all the way |
| 1:03.7 | back to France, 98, how the world and the media and journalism football has changed since then. |
| 1:09.1 | How excited are we? Matt, I'll start with you. |
| 1:15.4 | Look, it's, you come into this business to go to things like the World Cup. |
| 1:19.7 | Yeah. And yeah, Johnny and I have been incredibly lucky to now be going to our eighth. |
| 1:28.5 | It's the pinnacle. It's, and actually, I always say this to young reporters, there is nothing like covering England a World Cup. There is... |
| 1:29.5 | In terms of professional kind of just the appetite for information, the appetite for |
... |
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