Make it out of the group and they will be five victories away from potentially becoming world champions for the first time since 1966, but how much of an obstacle are the three teams standing between England and the knockout stages?<\/p>\n
Croatia – June 17, Dallas<\/p>\n
England beat Croatia during the group stage of Euro 2004 when a certain Igor Tudor was among the opposition goalscorers in what was the first chapter of the Three Lions\u2019 most storied rivalry since the turn of the century.<\/p>\n
The two teams have met a further eight times since that day. In denying England a place at Euro 2008 and then reaching the final of the 2018 World Cup at their expense in Moscow, the Croats can claim to have caused plenty of heartache for fans of a nation whose population is 15 times larger.<\/p>\n
Zlatko Dalic\u2019s team are ranked 11th in the world but a golden generation is retiring one by one and leaving gaps in its wake.<\/p>\n
Having qualified at a canter, they\u2019ve lost to Brazil and Belgium lately – a reminder to England that they are beatable. 40-year-old Luka Modric will earn his 199th cap in Dallas.<\/p>\n
From Manchester City duo Josko Gvardiol and Mateo Kovacic to battle-hardened Ivan Perisic, familiar faces fill the squad of England\u2019s toughest group-stage opponents.<\/p>\n
The Black Stars finished bottom of their qualifying group for the most recent Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) so were not even one of the 24 teams to take part at that tournament in Morocco.<\/p>\n
To have qualified for a World Cup that arch-rivals Nigeria did not is thus a monumental source of pride for a nation that won the hearts of the neutrals with their spirted run to the quarter-finals (and almost the semis) at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.<\/p>\n
![\"<p><\/p>\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AdalbertoCarrasquillaLukaModricAntoineSemenyo.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
England beware: Adalberto Carrasquilla, Luka Modric and Antoine Semenyo will be out to hurt the Three Lions in Group L<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
Ghana sacked manager Otto Addo just 72 days before the tournament and replaced him with Carlos Queiroz, throwing preparations into disarray. Tottenham winger Mohammed Kudus being ruled out through injury did not help matters.<\/p>\n
The second group game, on June 23 in Boston, should be a fine occasion. Three of Ghana\u2019s squad were born in England, including, as the FA are all too painfully aware, Manchester City\u2019s London-born star Antoine Semenyo.<\/p>\n
While they\u2019ll be out to prove a point, Ghana have found goals hard to come by and ship plenty at the other end. England should win.<\/p>\n
Panama – June 27, New Jersey<\/p>\n
Los Canaleros don\u2019t boast particularly famous names, and trying to appeal to the English by selecting a player named Azarias Londono feels an unorthodox bargaining method for politely asking Tuchel’s side to keep the score down – something their head coach genuinely requested to Southgate when the score was 5-0 at half-time in 2018.<\/p>\n
But Panama must be taken seriously, particularly by a much-changed XI if England are already through. Qualifying top of the group is important, and while Ghana are ranked 73rd in the world, Panama, impressively, sit 34th.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re not going for a selfie,\u201d said their ambitious head coach Thomas Christiansen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, FIFA\u2019s decision to expand the tournament to 48 nations means that Thomas Tuchel\u2019s side have the right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1023737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,13490,393,19912,4884,20446,16,15,93214],"class_list":["post-1023736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-england","tag-britain","tag-croatia","tag-england","tag-ghana","tag-great-britain","tag-panama","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-world-cup-2026"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116742020765221971","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1023736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1023737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1023736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1023736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1023736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}