England vs Albania starts the World Cup 2026 qualifying campaign for England under Thomas Tuchel. Tuchel has made some bold choices in his squad keeping stalwarts like Jordan Henderson in the side despite having left the Premier League over the last number of years. Notably he has allowed younger players like Adam Wharton and Jarrad Branthwaite remain with the Under 21’s but could give England debuts to Dan Burn and Myles Lewis-Skelley. 

Albania qualified for Euro 2024 in first place, which was their second major tournament in their history. They picked up 15 points in the eight match group stage and only conceded four goals in the campaign. They caused Italy big problems in the opener despite losing 2-1 and drew with Croatia, before only losing 1-0 to Spain. In the Nations League they didn’t have a great campaign.

England are currently fourth in the world, while Albania are 65th in the world rankings.

England vs Albania Head-to-head statistics: Last six meetings

• England 5-0 Albania
• Albania 0-2 England
• England 2-0 Albania
• Albania 1-3 England
• England 5-0 Albania
• Albania 0-2 England

England with six wins from six meetings between the nations.

Matchup Statistics

• England’s squad for this international is valued at €1.2bn by Transfermarkt, while the Albania squad is valued at €98m. England have three players in the squad for this game who are valued higher than Albania’s full squad (Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and Declan Rice), while Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka are also valued higher than the while Albania squad but are unavailable for this tie through injury. 
• Thomas Tuchel and Sylvinho have managed against each other once when Tuchel was the manager of PSG and Sylvinho was in charge of Lyon. The game finished 1-0 in Tuchel’s favour. 
• Harry Kane has scored four goals and provided two assists in two matches against Albania, scoring a hattrick and assisting another in a 5-0 win at Wembley in 2021.
• In the six matches that these two sides have met, Albania have scored once while England have scored 19. 

Team Statistics

• England have not lost a qualifying game for a major tournament since a shock defeat to Czechia in 2019. Their last World Cup qualification loss came in 2009 to Ukraine when Andriy Shevenko scored from the penalty spot after Rob Green got sent off in the 13th minute.
• Tuchel becomes England 16th full time manager since it became a full time role, Gareth Southgate his permanent predecessor was the most successful manager since Sir Alf Ramsey who the World Cup in 1996. Southgate reached a World Cup semi final and two Euros finals in 2021 and 2024.
• England won five of their six Nations League matches under caretake Lee Carsley having dropped down to League B. In this campaign they conceded three goals and scored 16. 
• Albania finished bottom of their Nations League group with seven points. Interestingly they only conceded six goals in the campaign but only scored four. 

Player Statistics

• A goal for Harry Kane would bring him to 70 goals, the first time an England player would reach that milestone. 
• Outside of Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford is the next highest England goalscorer in the squad with 17. A goal in this game would take him above David Beckham and into the top 25 England goalscorers of all time. 
• If Jordan Pickford plays, he will get his 74th cap, overtaking Gordon Banks and moving one behind David Seaman and Joe Hart. Only Peter Shilton has more caps as a goalkeeper with 126.
• Harry Kane has scored 17 goals in 14 World Cup qualification games. He is only one goal away from Romelu Lukaku on 18 and even only two international legends like Zlatan Ibrahimovic who scored 19 in 34 games.