Liverpool’s 8 World Cup Players Leave Iraola 14 Senior Options — 2010 World Cup
Only eight Liverpool players will be involved in the 2010 world cup, leaving Andoni Iraola with 14 senior players available from the start of pre-season. For a new head coach who wants time with his squad, that gives Liverpool a very different summer from the one many clubs face.
Iraola and Liverpool’s summer
Those eight are Alisson Becker, Virgil van Dijk, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Alexis Mac Allister, Wataru Endo, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak. Alisson will be with Brazil, Van Dijk, Gravenberch and Gakpo with the Netherlands, Mac Allister with Argentina, Endo with Japan, Wirtz with Germany and Isak with Sweden.
Iraola’s first message on arrival was blunt. “For me, and I will tell them, (they) are all new signings,” he said. He added: “For me, you are all new signings and I think we have a lot of quality in our squad, and (I’m) really looking forward to working with them.”
Pre-season numbers for Iraola
The 14 senior players expected to be available from the start of pre-season are Giorgi Mamardashvili, Freddie Woodman, Jeremie Frimpong, Joe Gomez, Giovanni Leoni, Jeremy Jacquet, Milos Kerkez, Kostas Tsimikas, Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliott, Trey Nyoni, Federico Chiesa and Rio Ngumoha. That group also includes players regularly involved in matchday squads last season, giving Iraola an immediate core to work with before the 2026-27 season begins.
The list is shorter than Liverpool have sometimes carried into major tournaments in recent years, when success has sent more senior players away on international duty. This time, the World Cup’s 48-team format still pulls eight away, but it leaves a larger block of first-team players at the training ground.
Last season’s Liverpool context
Liverpool’s fitness levels were heavily criticised last season, and the club also went through a far harder interruption when Diogo Jota died days before the players returned for pre-season. Andy Robertson said then: “Football didn’t matter” and, “We didn’t care about football for weeks. None of us wanted to train. That was the reality.”
Mohamed Salah, Andrew Robertson and Ibrahima Konate are still technically Liverpool players until June 30, while Hugo Ekitike would have been involved with France before a serious Achilles injury in March and Jeremy Jacquet’s shoulder injury ended his late push for the French squad. Even with those absences, the basic shape of the summer is clear: Iraola gets a bigger senior group from day one, and Liverpool get a rare chance to build fitness and habits before the season starts.
