Eighteen England players will wear special World Cup patches during the tournament.
A total of 18 England players will wear a special patch at the 2026 World Cup, alongside stars from many other countries, thanks to a new FIFA partnership.
England will play their final World Cup warm-up game against Costa Rica on Wednesday at the Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, Florida. After that, Thomas Tuchel’s team will get ready for their Group L opener against Croatia next week at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. They will then play their other group games against Ghana and Panama at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough and MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, respectively.
Out of the 26 players picked by Tuchel, only eight have World Cup experience. So, the rest—including Dean Henderson, James Trafford, Ezri Konsa, Marc Guehi, Reece James, Tino Livramento, Nico O’Reilly, and several others—will be making their World Cup debut.
To celebrate this milestone, these debut players will wear a special patch on their shirts, thanks to Fanatics/Topps, FIFA’s new trading card and collectibles partner. This partnership officially starts in 2031, but for the 2026 World Cup, every new player will get this unique patch.
After their first game, the patches will be taken off and turned into collectible items by Topps, which will be available to fans later on. These patches are already popular in Major League Soccer (MLS) in the U.S., where they’re worn on the upper right chest of jerseys above the Adidas logo.
In the MLS, after being removed, the patches go onto trading cards that are randomly packed into special hobby boxes. These boxes usually cost around $120 and often include autographs. It’s not yet clear if the same will happen with the World Cup patches.
According to BBC’s Dale Johnson, these collectibles won’t be for sale until 2031, when the Fanatics and Topps deal officially begins—by that time, items from the 2030 World Cup will likely be available too.
Johnson thinks there could be over 600 cards from the 2026 World Cup, featuring big-name debutants like Lamine Yamal and Erling Haaland. Players from countries making their first World Cup appearances—like Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan, and Uzbekistan—will all wear these debut patches, and many others from nations with key absences will too.
These patches are very popular in other U.S. sports like baseball, but the exact look of the new World Cup patch hasn’t been revealed yet.