London club will have more internationals at 2026 World Cup than Real Madrid
Even Crystal Palace fans have been so blown away by their club’s achievements over the past two seasons that they want it to end. They are scared that you can have just a little too much of a good thing.
Palace were fighting relegation and insolvency in the Championship as recently as 2010. The club survived that season with a 2-2 draw against Sheffield Wednesday, who went down instead. Shortly after, a four-member consortium led by current chairman Steve Parish managed to buy the club and save it from liquidation.
Fast forward to 2025 and the club had won the first trophy in their 120-year history, beating Manchester City at Wembley to win the FA Cup. All thanks to the brilliance and will of manager Oliver Glasner, who joined just over a year before, after a spell at Eintracht Frankfurt.
With the FA Cup win Palace secured European football for the first time, but administrative issues led to their demotion to the Conference League. This season, Glasner’s last at the club, the Austrian led them to a Conference League win, their first European trophy, which also meant that they re-qualified for the Europa League they had deserved last year.
With the 2026 World Cup coming up this June and all the nations having released their 26-man squads, Palace have 12 of their players representing their countries at the global tournament.
It is more players than either Liverpool (8) or Real Madrid (11). Palace also had more players selected in the Spain squad than Madrid, with their right winger Yeremy Pino included and not even a single Madrid player picked in Luis De La Fuente’s team for the first time in World Cup history.
Palace’s number of 12 players featuring at the World Cup also ranks among the very highest in the world. Only Manchester City (19), Bayern Munich (18), Paris Saint-Germain, (16) Arsenal (16) and Barcelona (15) have more of their squad included at the World Cup. The south London club are level with Manchester United and Atletico Madrid.
