Gruelling football calendar to blame for 'victim' Phil Foden's England squad absence

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FT Desk

The chief of the Professional Footballers' Association believes Phil Foden is a "victim" of the ever-expanding football calendar, following the confirmation that he will not play for England at the 2026 World Cup.

Thomas Tuchel named his 26-man squad for the tournament in North America last week and there were a number of notable omissions like Foden, Cole Palmer, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Lewis Hall and Morgan Gibbs-White.

The German explained his reasoning afterwards, saying: "From day one we were clear we were trying to build the best possible team, which is not necessarily the 26 most talented players.

"Teams win championships - and what we're trying to achieve can only be achieved as a team. We have players ready and committed to the idea of team spirit and being unselfish.

"We have specialists for different scenarios - when we're leading, when we're chasing a result. We have always said we want to be a strong set-piece team, so we have specialists for that and we want to be a strong penalty team, we have specialists for that."

There's no doubt that Foden has not been himself over the last couple of seasons and that's reflected in the number of minutes he's managed since the Euros.

Heading into the European Championships, he was flying, coming off a Man City campaign in which he scored 27 goals, recorded 13 assists and played 4,276 minutes across all competitions.

In 2024/25 he had 20 goal contributions and played 2,993 minutes while in 2025/26, he had 17 goal contributions and played 3,048 minutes.

PFA chief Maheta Molang believes there are reasons why Foden has regressed over the last couple of seasons since the last international tournament.

"The number of games that he's been available for has dropped and, when he has been available, it has not been the version of Phil Foden we saw two years ago," he said at a Fifpro meeting.

"Unfortunately, he is one of the victims of this crazy calendar that only makes sense for those pursuing commercial gain to the detriment of the quality of the spectacle and the protection of players, who should be football's heritage.

"It's a very sad state of affairs if someone like Phil is not on the pitch because we love players who make us dream and who have pure talent."

There are increasing concerns about footballer burnout due to the number of games that keep being added to the calendar each year. Over the last decade, we have seen the introduction of the Nations League, the Club World Cup was brought back as a full summer tournament, the Champions League league phase added more European fixtures and the World Cup was expanded to 48 teams.

Fifpro have determined that the World Cup may end up being "survival of the fittest".

Molang said: "There is a big chance that may be the case because some of the most talented players at the biggest clubs will reach a point where it is simply too much.

"You cannot go into a competition having already played 60, or close to 60, games."

The organisation believes that Virgil van Dijk and Declan Rice, who played 38 and 36 league games respectively this past season, are at high risk of injury at the tournament.