(Photos by Marcelo Endelli, Dean Mouhtaropoulos and Christian Kaspar-Bartke/Getty Images)
The 2026 World Cup is almost upon us, with the newly-expanded tournament getting underway on Thursday and continuing right the way through to the final on 19 July.
Liverpool will have eight current players involved at the finals, along with the departing trio of Mo Salah, Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate, although recent England debutant Rio Ngumoha won’t feature because of his omission from the provisional 55-player squad in May.
DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL EMPIRE OF THE KOP APP FOR ALL THE LATEST & BREAKING UPDATES – STRAIGHT TO YOUR PHONE! ON APPLE & GOOGLE PLAY
With the competition taking place across a multitude of time zones in North America, it’ll mean some very late nights for Reds fans in the UK, Ireland and Europe if they want to see every game involving an Anfield star.
Dates and times for every World Cup group game featuring Liverpool players
Here’s the full list of group games with Liverpool involvement, with kick-off times listed in BST:
Saturday 13 June 11pm Brazil v Morocco Alisson Becker
Sunday 14 June 6pm Germany v Curacao Florian Wirtz
Sunday 14 June 9pm Netherlands v Japan Van Dijk, Gakpo, Gravenberch, Endo
Monday 15 June 3am Sweden v Tunisia Alexander Isak
Wednesday 17 June 2am Argentina v Algeria Alexis Mac Allister
Saturday 20 June 2am Brazil v Haiti Alisson Becker
Saturday 20 June 6pm Netherlands v Sweden Van Dijk, Gakpo, Gravenberch, Isak
Saturday 20 June 9pm Germany v Ivory Coast Florian Wirtz
Sunday 21 June 5am Tunisia v Japan Wataru Endo
Monday 22 June 6pm Argentina v Austria Alexis Mac Allister
Wednesday 24 June 11pm Scotland v Brazil Alisson Becker
Thursday 25 June 9pm Ecuador v Germany Florian Wirtz
Friday 26 June midnight Tunisia v Netherlands Virgil van Dijk, Cody Gakpo, Ryan Gravenberch
Friday 26 June midnight Japan v Sweden Wataru Endo, Alexander Isak
Sunday 28 June 3pm Argentina v Austria Alexis Mac Allister
Want more Empire of the Kop coverage? Add us as apreferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust
Which Liverpool players will stand out the most at this World Cup?
Curiously, more than half of the Liverpool players at this World Cup are concentrated in one group, with Netherlands, Sweden and Japan all facing off in Group E, and at least two of those (quite plausibly all three) will advance to the knockout rounds.
Danny Murphy is particularly intrigued to see Wirtz, Isak and Gravenberch in action, with the former two feeling they’ll have a point to prove after the criticism they shipped in their first season at Anfield, and the latter’s positional deployment under Ronald Koeman sure to be intriguing.
There’ll also be plenty of eyes on holders Argentina to see if they can become the first team since 1962 to retain the World Cup trophy. If that happens, Mac Allister would become the first LFC player to win the tournament since Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina with Spain in 2010.
Even with no Liverpool involvement in the England squad, there’s sure to be plenty of vested interest from Kopites in the 48-team extravaganza across USA, Canada and Mexico, not least from the Reds’ new head coach Andoni Iraola as he scopes out the players he’ll be leading next season.