In the days and hours before naming his England squad for this summer’s World Cup, Thomas Tuchel made around 50 phone calls.Some of those went great, others were more difficult, and a handful of them he would no doubt rather forget about.One even led to Harry Maguire, the Manchester United defender, saying he was “shocked and gutted” to have been left out, a public reaction Tuchel later described as “unnecessary”, with the player’s mother, Zoe, making it a family affair by also weighing in via social media to say she was “disgusted”.But a more positive call was to the player whose selection caused perhaps the most surprise, Ivan Toney. Tuchel was not exactly met with an overwhelming reaction from the striker, though, with the manager saying the 30-year-old received the news in his typically laid-back fashion.Tuchel is experienced enough to know you cannot please everyone — nor did he want to.There were a handful of players who were resigned to being omitted from the squad, despite the consensus being that they had possibly done enough to warrant a place on England’s flight to the United States on June 1, or at the very least be part of the conversation.Morgan Gibbs-White, who has had a brilliant second half of the season for Nottingham Forest, is one. So, too, is Brighton & Hove Albion’s Danny Welbeck, as is Crystal Palace’s Adam Wharton.While there is a regular clamour for Trent Alexander-Arnold to be in Tuchel’s thinking, the Real Madrid right-back was overlooked.So too were Manchester City’s Phil Foden and Chelsea’s Cole Palmer, two players who not so long ago would have been considered certainties for selection. Following both players’ lacklustre campaigns, they too were left out, and Tuchel was not shy in explaining why.Throughout his various media appearances on Friday, Tuchel did not duck questions. He was forthcoming, honest and probably offended a few players in the process. But he has a laser focus on winning the World Cup, so sentiment has gone out of the window.To tell the story of a squad selection that has prompted outrage in some quarters and delight in others, The Athletic has spoken to multiple sources, all of whom did so on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships.Tuchel started calling the players on his long list on Tuesday, and when it emerged on Thursday night that Toney had been selected by the 52-year-old, plenty of eyebrows were raised.Until recently, the pair had not even spoken to each other following the disastrous June friendlies in 2025, when Toney appeared for just two minutes across two matches, with Tuchel saying on Friday he was far from impressed by the striker’s “training and commitment” during that particular camp.It seemed implausible, maybe even impossible, that Toney would play for Tuchel’s England again. But over the past year, the ice between them thawed and, as has become a key theme of Tuchel and his coaching team’s approach, they are always watching.Justin Cochrane, one of Tuchel’s assistants, worked with Toney at Brentford and went to watch him play in Saudi Arabia — something Tuchel has not done himself — and the feedback was positive. Anthony Barry, the assistant coach, worked with the striker during his loan spell at Wigan Athletic in 2017, so he also knows him well.It was only in recent weeks, however, that Tuchel and Toney started talking again, which coincided with the Al Ahli forward regularly being the answer to the coaching team’s problems when discussing different World Cup scenarios.“Would he be a player you would like to fall the ball down to if there is a ricochet in the box? Yes. Absolutely,” Tuchel said on Friday.“Would he be the player you want to have this touch? Does he take, with his presence, the attention off other strikers? Yes… and he is a world-class penalty-taker.”Toney knows he is going as Harry Kane’s backup and that means not being a starter — Tuchel instead described him as being in his “special operations team” — but one key reason behind his inclusion is his height when it comes to defending set pieces in the absence of Maguire.Ivan Toney had slipped down the England pecking order after moving to Saudi Arabia (Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images)John Stones’ selection was not as striking as Toney’s, but it also raised questions given his lack of football all season, having played just four times for Manchester City since the turn of the year.But Tuchel rates him incredibly highly, saying on Friday that he can also play as a midfielder if needs be, and sources privy to the information are very confident regarding Stones’ fitness and note that he has been available for months.And because there is a relatively small sample of data to analyse from a matches standpoint, England’s coaches have instead been poring over his training data, which, Tuchel says, paints a great picture.There were also some players who very nearly made the squad, including Bournemouth’s Alex Scott.The midfielder was one of the marginal calls that could have gone either way, and he leapt at the chance to be one of the four players flying to Florida for their pre-World Cup camp, along with Liverpool’s Rio Ngumoha, Fulham’s Josh King, and a fourth player who is yet to be confirmed as details are still being finalised with his club.The quartet will be temporarily filling in for the Arsenal players — Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke — who are not arriving until around the time of England’s first warm-up friendly, against Costa Rica on June 6, as they are playing Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final on May 30.When you are making around 50 phone calls, not all of them are going to be easy.Tuchel spoke on Friday of Gibbs-White being a very difficult decision, but the Nottingham Forest attacker himself did not expect to be selected. Sources close to the player highlighted what they consider to be a lack of opportunities when he has been called up by Tuchel and an absence of contact in recent weeks led them to believe he had little chance of making the squad.They also pointed to the fact that no English player has scored more goals than Gibbs-White in the Premier League this season.Morgan Gibbs-White had made a strong case for inclusion in the World Cup squad (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)There was plenty of debate surrounding Maguire’s exclusion, particularly since he has such a wealth of World Cup experience. But while in football that is generally viewed as a good thing, Tuchel and his coaching staff are also conscious that there are downsides that come with having been there and done it before, including scars from previous tournaments.The decision to omit the Manchester United defender would not have been taken without good reason, nor would it have been taken lightly.In contrast to the sense of injustice felt by some players, the omissions of Foden and Palmer may have seemed contentious in theory but, in reality, caused only a minor stir.Over the past year or two, Foden, by his own admission, has not been his usual self, while Palmer has struggled to hit the same heights he has previously managed, with his 2025-26 campaign interrupted by a groin injury that meant he missed 15 matches between August and November.When he did return, Chelsea’s season had hit the ropes and he was largely ineffective in a struggling team that had to navigate two managerial changes.The excluded No 10s, including Foden and Palmer, are fine technical players who can unlock defences, but one contributing factor to Tuchel’s thought process that may have been overlooked is that he wants explosive players in the attacking areas of the pitch.He depends on Reece James, Elliot Anderson and Rice to make the difference from a technical standpoint, with players such as Kane, Saka, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Gordon required to do the work in the final third.Also crucial in this squad selection is the fact that Tuchel and his coaching staff are always watching and are constantly carrying out due diligence on players in the background, regularly speaking to clubs to find out how they are behaving.Barry, for example, watched on incognito in Serbia in September as the unused substitutes were put through their paces after a 5-0 win in the dark, something Tuchel described as a “beautiful” moment.“There was no whispering in the dressing room, no ‘Why did I not play? Why did you not come on?’. They just said, ‘Come on, let’s do some runs’,” Tuchel said.He also leaned on Rich Hampson, the Football Association’s head of psychology and an important member of his backroom staff, in the process of selecting his squad.“He (Hampson) observes communication, behaviours within the group, behaviours within the matches and compares them to other national teams. He upskills the leadership group (of players),” Tuchel explained.If England are to be successful in the United States, then they are going to need to be happy campers — and that has also been central to Tuchel’s thinking.They could be in North America for seven weeks, given the final is on July 19. Tuchel does not want dressing-room cliques and has put a premium on having a unified group pulling in the same direction.“It is about building brotherhood, it is about building excitement and a certain energy,” he said.“When I see the 26 reactions in the last three days to my phone call, I think the spirit is there. It was amazing to see. I wish everyone could have seen what it means to the players, the joy, the emotion, to get this phone call. That is the way we think, the way we see.“We will be together 24 hours a day. No one can drive home and have an afternoon off at home and relax and come back the next day. That is why this is very important. That is why we rely so heavily on the group that built this kind of spirit. We worked in three camps from September until November.”When Tuchel accepted the England job in October 2024, anything but winning the World Cup would have been considered a failure. And now that he has named his squad, all that remains is for the tournament to start.Tuchel has owned his big calls and justified his choices. Now he, along with the 26 players he has selected, needs to deliver.