Harry Souttar's inclusion in Australia's World Cup squad is a story of remarkable resilience. The tall centre-back ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament in March 2023 — just months after one of the finest individual performances any Australian player has delivered at a major tournament, when his commanding presence in the 2022 World Cup helped the Socceroos reach the quarter-finals for only the second time in their history. He spent 16 months in rehabilitation, missed almost the entire 2023-24 season at Leicester, and only returned to first-team football in April 2026 — coming off the bench and then starting against Millwall, where he scored a header in the 78th minute on his return.

For all the grimness of Leicester's Championship and League One relegation this season, Souttar's individual story runs counter to it. He arrives at the World Cup match-fit, having broken his drought in competitive football in the final weeks of the season. Australia's Tony Popovic had been monitoring his progress carefully — and his inclusion is confirmed in the Socceroos' squad. He will likely compete for a central defensive berth alongside Milos Degenek and Cameron Burgess.

The interesting question for Australian fans is whether 16 months away from competitive football has dulled any of the commanding physical presence that made him so effective in Qatar. The signs from his return at Leicester — confident, dominant in the air, composed — suggest not.

Jordan Ayew arrives at his fourth FIFA World Cup as Ghana captain — a remarkable testament to his longevity and consistent importance to a national team that has qualified for four consecutive World Cups. He made his World Cup debut in 2014 in Brazil and has been a fixture in every Ghana squad since, carrying both the armband and the experienced leadership that a squad under its fifth manager in four years — Carlos Queiroz, who took charge in April 2026 — clearly needs.

At club level, Ayew's Leicester career has been frustrating. He arrived with experience and pedigree but has found first-team opportunities limited under three different managers across a disastrous season. His use was largely as a late substitute, contributing energy and movement rather than goals. But at international level, particularly in the World Cup context where his family name — father Abedi Pele is a Ghana legend, brother Andre Ayew has also been a fixture — carries real meaning, Ayew tends to elevate his performance.

Ghana's squad under Queiroz also includes some exciting attacking options — Antoine Semenyo (Manchester City), Iñaki Williams (Athletic Bilbao), and Ernest Nuamah (Lyon) — but Ayew's captaincy and 100+ caps give him an authority in the group that no one else can match. At 34, this will almost certainly be his final World Cup. The occasion tends to bring out something extra in players for whom that truth is visible.

Of the three Leicester players confirmed at the World Cup, Fatawu is the one whose tournament fortunes could have the most direct impact on what happens to Leicester City as a club. The 21-year-old Ghanaian winger — direct, quick, unpredictable on the left — has been one of the few genuinely bright individual performers in an otherwise dismal Leicester season, and he heads to North America as a confirmed starter in Ghana's attacking lineup alongside a genuinely exciting supporting cast.

A strong World Cup performance — goals, assists, memorable moments — will almost certainly accelerate the departure of a player who is already attracting significant Premier League interest. Leicester, going to League One, will find it almost impossible to retain a winger with a World Cup platform and established Premier League suitors. The tournament acts as a shop window at a moment when the window is open wider for Fatawu than it has ever been.

From a purely football perspective, he is the right age — 21, at his first senior World Cup — at the right moment in his development, with the direct qualities that thrive in the knockout stages when tired defenders face raw pace. Ghana's attacking options give Queiroz real variety to work with. If Fatawu gets his opportunities and takes them, the calls from bigger clubs will not wait until July.

The most painful absence from a Leicester perspective. Jordan James has been the best player at the club this season by a comfortable margin — 11 Championship goals, a relentless work rate, the kind of driving midfield presence that this team has missed whenever he has been absent with his heel injury. He is 21 years old, Welsh, and precisely the kind of player who would have benefited most from a World Cup spotlight.

Wales, under Craig Bellamy, did not qualify for the tournament. Their path through the UEFA play-offs — needing to overcome Bosnia and Herzegovina and then face either Italy or Northern Ireland — ended in disappointment. It is a significant setback for Welsh football's current generation, which includes James alongside Brennan Johnson and Daniel James as its most exciting attacking and midfield talents.

For James personally, the absence is compounded by the timing. He turns 21 this year. A World Cup would have been an extraordinary platform at exactly the right age — and the transfer speculation around him this summer, already intense given Leicester's relegation and the interest from Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City, would have been even more ferocious had he been performing on the global stage in June. His summer narrative will be written in transfer windows rather than knockout rounds.

Patson Daka is one of the most technically gifted strikers in the Championship — pace, touch, intelligent movement — and his form since Rowett's arrival gave Leicester their most consistent attacking threat. But Zambia, drawn in one of the more competitive CAF qualifying groups alongside Morocco and Nigeria, did not secure one of Africa's ten World Cup places. The Chipolopolo's campaign ultimately fell short despite Daka's regular involvement in qualifiers and AFCON.

Zambia's absence means Daka — like James — will spend the World Cup weeks watching while his future at Leicester City is negotiated. He is under contract but the club going to League One changes the conversation around every senior player's continuation. A striker of his quality attracts interest at Championship level; the question of whether he stays into League One is one Leicester's recruitment team will be examining this summer.

Victor Kristiansen was part of Denmark's Euro 2024 squad and has been a regular in Brian Riemer's side. But Denmark — somewhat surprisingly given their quality — did not make it through the UEFA play-off route to the expanded 48-team World Cup. The confirmed 16 European qualifiers did not include the Danes, meaning Kristiansen's summer will be a training break rather than a tournament.

At club level, Kristiansen had a difficult season at Leicester with injury limiting his appearances. His future at the club is uncertain — a player of his international profile will have options beyond League One, and the absence of a World Cup stage does nothing to complicate a straightforward transfer calculus: he almost certainly needs to move to a club competing at a higher level.