World Cup 2026: The Premier League has dominated defense in the last four but not attack.

If you want to earn a Premier League name on World Cup semi-final duty, look to defend rather than attack.

Although the final 4 teams of the competition have 41 Premier League players between them, few of the strikers on show are based in England.

France, Spain and Argentina, who participated in the English Premier League last season, have a total of 20 players.

To add to that, 21 of the 26 players in the Three Lions squad are players – a total that includes Anthony Gordon, who played for Newcastle last season but has joined Barcelona, ​​but excludes Marcus Rashford, who spent the campaign on loan at the Nou Camp from Manchester United.

The Premier League is comfortably the best-represented domestic competition in the semi-finals – La Liga is next on the list, with 29 players, 17 of whom are in the Spanish squad.

However, if you start to break down the Premier League squads by position, a trend emerges.

This year’s semi-finalists have plenty of defensive options against England: Argentina’s Christian Romero of Tottenham and Manchester United’s Lisandro Martinez; France’s William Saliba of Arsenal and Lucas Digne of Aston Villa; The Spaniard is Chelsea’s Mark Cucurella and Tottenham’s Pedro Porro.

England’s first away 6-and-keeper came in the Premier League last season’s 2-1 quarter-final win over Norway.

During the tournament, 95% of England’s defensive minutes were played by Premier League footballers. The figure is highest for Argentina (46.8%), Spain (45.5%) and France (43.1%).

The front is a different story.

In a 2-0 quarter-final win over Morocco, France were led by Desiree Doue (Paris St-Germain), Kylian Mbappe (Real Madrid) and Ousmane Dembele (Paris St-Germain) supported by Michael Olisse (Bayern Munich).

Spain, 2-1 in the quarter-finals against Belgium, started with Alex Baena (Atletico Madrid), Mikel Oyarzabal (Real Sociedad) and Lamine Yamal (Barcelona), often assisted by Dani Olmo (Barcelona).

Argentina beat Switzerland 3-1 with Julian Alvarez (Atletico Madrid) and Lionel Messi (Inter Miami) leading the way, although two of the back four midfielders come from the Premier League in Liverpool’s Alexis McAllister and Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez.

Following Gordon’s move to La Liga from England forward Gordon, the only right-back options – Noni Maduke or his Arsenal clubmate Bukayo Saka – will play their football in England. So is the Premier League struggling to match the best attacking talent of other leagues?

Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, who was knocked out in the quarter-finals against Norway, could say otherwise, while Arsenal midfielder Michael Merino – who was arguably Spain’s key man in the play-offs.

But only one of England’s front four against Norway – Maduke – will play in the Premier League next season.

None of Spain’s front four – Merino has been used in place of influence – has been represented by a French striker in the Premier League, with only Manchester City’s Ryan Cherky and Crystal Palace’s Jean-Philippe Mattea.

In other words, many defenders in the Premier League are still chasing the trophy, even if the headlines are being made elsewhere.