Image Credits: Imago Images
The 2026 World Cup is now just over ten weeks away, with no less than 13 Liverpool players qualifying with their respective nations.
Uruguay qualified for the finals with Marcelo Bielsa’s characteristic mix of intensity and tactical discipline, and back in 2023, Darwin Nunez was the man leading the charge, bagging and creating goals in a strong qualifying campaign.
But fast forward to April 2026, and the picture looks very different. El Observador’s extensive piece on the Nunez situation paints a portrait of a player in freefall at club level, with serious knock-on implications for Uruguay’s World Cup hopes.
Since departing Liverpool last summer for Al-Hilal in a deal worth £46.1 million plus add-ons, Nunez has been axed from Al-Hilal’s Saudi Pro League squad entirely in February, bumped off the 25-man domestic roster to make room for Karim Benzema following the 38-year-old’s January arrival from Al-Ittihad.
Under Saudi league rules restricting clubs to eight non-Saudi foreign players in their domestic squad, the club chose the former Real Madrid man – and Nunez was left out in the cold.
And as a result, El Observador are claiming that he could be third-choice striker and may play very little at the upcoming World Cup – if at all:
“When he arrives at the World Cup, one possibility is that Darwin will continue to be, due to his sporting level, the third striker of the national team and he will not play and if he does, he will not score,” Luis Eduardo Inzaurralde reports.
They evidence it with the fact that His lack of game time is affecting him on every level – physically, football-wise and mentally.
Furthermore, Since the Copa America in the United States in June 2024, Darwin has played eight times for Uruguay without finding the net. By May, it will be two full years without an international goal, a stark contrast to Bielsa’s first year in charge when he struck 10 times for the national team.
Bielsa is now facing a genuine dilemma. He has remained loyal to Nunez throughout the difficult spell.
When quizzed on why the former Liverpool striker did not start last Friday’s against England, Bielsa said: “He has not competed officially for 50 days.”
“When a player has not competed for a long time, you have to be very careful to manage the number of minutes and the demands, because competition is an essential condiment to build form.”
Given his well-documented admiration for the striker’s physical qualities, it would be a shock for the veteran Argentine coach to leave him out of his World Cup squad entirely. But the question isn’t just whether Nunez travels to North America. It’s whether a player without meaningful match sharpness can be trusted to lead the line in knockout football against the world’s best defences.
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