Group L Draw Recap: The Path to Football Coming Home
England is in one of the toughest groups in the tournament
England will be playing a single match at Gillette Stadium and the path to bringing football home will be difficult for The Three Lions.
England is in a group with Croatia, Ghana and Panama.
“A difficult group, a difficult group,” England head coach Thomas Tuchel said after the draw. “We have Croatia and Ghana, two regulars in World Cups, and we have Panama. I don’t know much about Panama but we will know everything about them when the tournament starts. So, it’s a difficult group, a difficult opener against Croatia. But, okay, we take it from here. For me, personally, always, even like in the (UEFA) Champions League, you have to focus on the group. The group is always the most difficult and we want to escape, we want to win the group. And it’s a tough one.
Croatia is fresh off a third-place finish in 2022 and were runner ups in 2018. The Blazers have the potential to win the group but at worst seem poised for a second-place finish.
Ghana is well known to United States National Team soccer fans. The likes of Mohammed Kudus, Jerome Opoku, and Antoine Semenyo lead the way for the Black Stars.
The African nation was grouped in 2022 and will be looking for a much better performance in 2026. They qualified for the tournament by topping their group in African World Cup Qualification but failed to qualify for the 2025 African Cup of Nations, for the first time since 2004, finishing bottom of the group below Angola, Sudan, and Niger.
But once you are at the World Cup anything can happen, the Black Stars will be looking to show they belong and could give England and Croatia problems come 2026.
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to educate Tuchel on Panama. But for now the Concacaf nation will look to compete against Ghana for third place but are likely to find themselves enjoying the ride in the summer.Los Canaleros are lead by captain Anibal Godoy as well as Luis Mejía, Adalberto Carrasquilla, Amir Murillo, and Cecilio Waterman. The side is also where J.D. Gunn plays his international football, having been born in Panama City.
It could be bias against Concacaf but Panama is actually ranked higher than Ghana in FIFA rankings. It also could be the trauma of the matches between the United States and the African nation.
But according to The Athletic, Group L is the third toughest group so while England should be at the top, it will not be a breeze getting through to the knockout stage.