England and Norway face wide dilemmas
The spotlight will inevitably fall on Harry Kane and Erling Haaland before England’s meeting with Norway, yet neither marksman brings any element of surprise. They will feature. They will likely deliver.
What is far more intriguing is the wide attackers Thomas Tuchel and Ståle Solbakken decide to field. This summer, neither side has completed a match with the same wide forwards who started it.
England have operated with Anthony Gordon and Marcus Rashford on the left flank, while the Arsenal duo of Noni Madueke and Bukayo Saka have shared duties on the right.
“All four wingers are battling each other at the highest level,” Tuchel remarked after the opening fixture against Croatia. With none of the quartet having played more than 57% of the available minutes at the World Cup or started more than three of the five games, the competition is intense.
Tuchel appears unsettled on his preferred pairing. He has trialled five of the six possible combinations, with Gordon and Rashford understandably not paired together given both favour the left. The manager’s in-game decisions will have been shaped partly by the scoreline, but he has been making his wide forward substitutions earlier and earlier in each fixture.
Chart showing the combinations of wingers that England have used at the 2026 World Cup
Jarell Quansah’s red card against Mexico skewed that match in this regard. Saka was taken off shortly after the defender’s 54th-minute dismissal, forcing England to adopt a shape devoid of wingers.
One pattern has developed. In each of England’s last three outings, the wingers who started were the two who had finished the previous game.
The selections may have been guided by the specific style of play Tuchel needed against a particular opponent. Gordon leads the squad for average carry distance at the World Cup, at 14.9 metres, while Madueke tops the chart for total metres carried per 90 minutes, with 255.8 metres.
Rashford is England’s leading winger for carries of at least five metres ending with a shot, scoring from one against Croatia. Only two players at the tournament have created more goals after carries than Saka, one of whom is Norway winger Andreas Schjelderup.
His only start came when Solbakken rotated heavily, making 10 changes for the final group game against France. After setting up Haaland for both goals against Brazil, the 22-year-old could find himself in the starting XI against England.
Solbakken, however, has been more systematic with his wide men than Tuchel. The duo of Antonio Nusa and Alexander Sørloth started three of the four ‘first-team’ matches, with Schjelderup and Oscar Bobb finishing each of those encounters.
Chart showing the combinations of wingers Norway have used at the 2026 World Cup
All four assists provided by these players came from the left, making it crucial that whoever occupies the right-back position for England cuts off the supply line to Haaland.
For Norway’s backline, the challenge of neutralising the threat from wide areas is more varied, even if the requirement to keep one of the world’s elite strikers quiet remains unchanged. Kane or Haaland are set to grab the headlines, but the performance of their respective wingers could well decide the outcome.
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