The 2026 World Cup is less than a month away.
On Thursday, June 11, the global tournament will kick off at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium with Mexico hosting South Africa in group stage play.
Teams around the world are beginning to name their official 26-player rosters for the tournament. Here are some of the biggest surprises and snubs from the world’s best teams:
Brazil
Brazilian national team coach Carlo Ancelotti took the rather unorthodox approach of announcing his final 26-man squad live on television instead of informing his players of their placements in advance. It gave us some great reactions — third-choice goalkeeper Weverton literally passed out from excitement when his name was called — but it gave us some devastating ones, too, none more so than Joao Pedro’s. The Chelsea attacker gathered his whole family in preemptive celebration only to find he was cut from Brazil’s roster at the last second.
Who made Brazil’s final roster over in-form, 24-year-old Pedro, whose antics nearly single-handedly won Chelsea the Club World Cup last summer? Why, out-of-shape 34-year-old Neymar, that’s who, despite playing just 686 minutes for Brazilian team Santos last season.
Neymar is beloved in Brazil, and his inclusion in the country’s final World Cup roster led to delirious celebrations in the streets. (Ancelotti had to pause for a good long while after announcing Neymar’s name because even the in-studio workers couldn’t stop cheering.) But all that popularity backed Ancelotti into a corner when it came to Neymar’s final selection. If he left him out of the squad, as he probably would’ve preferred to do, the Brazilian people would’ve used it against him at every turn.
Ancelotti didn’t have a good option here. His final decision — to bring Neymar, but explicitly as a depth player and not as a starter — was probably the best one he could’ve made for Brazil’s national harmony. But still: it’s hard to shake the feeling that Ancelotti is bringing a worse team to the World Cup than he should be simply because he needed to appease the court of public opinion. Sorry, Joao Pedro. It shouldn’t have to be like this.