Our 26 men roster of players who will miss out on Qatar 2022

All 32 teams taking part in the 2022 FIFA World Cup have finalized their list of 26 players they will take to the tournament.

Even though the World Cup offers the opportunity to see some of the best players in the World compete against each other, there are always some key players who fail to qualify with their national teams and others that are omitted from the final roster.

So, I decided to put my coach hat on and do my own 26-man roster of the best players from across the world that will miss out on Qatar 2022.

I do have some rules in place. I took in consideration players of countries who failed to qualify, and those who were passed by a team that will take part in the tournament.

The only restrictions I put for this list is not taking into account players missing the tournament due to an injury - so don’t expect to see players like N’Golo Kante in the list.

The other restrictions are not taking players who have already quit their national teams such as Cameroon defender Joel Matip. I'm also not taking more than four players from any single country, that was a bit difficult considering Italy missed out on the tournament and have seven to eight players worth being considered, but I also wanted to make sure this list has some variety.

So this is my Missed Out team:

Goalkeepers (3)

Gianluigiu Donnarumma (Italy PSG)

Jan Oblak (Slovenia/Atletico Madrid)

David De Gea (Spain/Manchester United)

Left Backs (2)

Andrew Robertson (Scotland/Liverpool)

Oleksandr Zinchenko (Ukraine/Arsenal)

Centerbacks (4)

Milan Skriniar (Slovakia/Inter Milan)

David Alaba (Austria/Real Madrid)

Fikayo Tomori (England/AC Milan)

Davinson Sanchez (Colombia/Tottenham)

Right Backs (2)

Matteo De Sciglio (Italy/AC Milan)

Emerson Royal (Brazil/Tottenham)

Defensive Midfielders (2)

Jorginho (Italy/Chelsea)

Wilfred Ndidi (Nigeria/Leicester City)

Central Midfielders (3)

Naby Keita (Guinea/Liverpool)

Nicolo Barella (Italy/Inter Milan)

Franck Kessie (Ivory Coast/Barcelona)

Attacking Midfielder (2)

Martin Odegaard (Norway/Arsenal)

Miguel Almiron (Paraguay/Newcastle United)

Left Winger (3)

Luis Diaz (Colombia/Liverpool)

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Georgia/Napoli)

Leon Bailey (Jamaica/Aston Villa)

Striker (3)

Erling Haaland (Norway/Manchester City)

Victor Osimhen (Nigeria/Napoli)

Alexander Isak (Sweden/Newcastle United)

Right Winger (2)

Mohamed Salah (Egypt/Liverpool)

Riyad Mahrez (Algeria/Manchester City)

The easiest decision here was to include Erling Haaland who is arguably one of the best players in the world at the moment.

Due to the 4 player per country limit, I had to get creative on who to take from Italy. Donnarumma and Jorginho were obvious choices, among the rest I had to take De Sciglio as there aren’t many quality right backs to choose from and Barella is a great midfielder who is playing very well. Those selections meant I had to skip over center backs such as Leonardo Bonucci, Alessandro Bastoni, and Federico Chiesa up front.

Overall I like the diversity in my team, it features plates from 20 different countries representing four of the six confederations. Asia and Oceania were the only confederations that didn’t get any players into my team.

Three of the players are from countries that did qualify for the World Cup including David De Gea who has not been considered by Spain since Luis Enrique took over. After the nightmare of a World Cup he had in Russia, I can’t blame Luis Enrique for that, however he is too good to pass up for my selection. But he is my third keeper, I wouldn’t let him anywhere near a starting spot.

The other two include Fikayo Tomori for England, He has played very well for AC Milan and was left off the team by Gareth Southgate and finally Emerson Royal the Tottenham Hotspur, while he is young and still has room to grow, he missed out on the Brazilian national team. His potential place was taken by Dani Alves. I also considered Roberto Firmino as one of my options but eventually opted to also leave him out.

Now to the next question, who are the starters?

The philosophy behind the team selection was a 4-3-3 - I felt it gave me the most versatility to choose the best players from different positions. One of the things I dislike when others do this type of exercise is that they find ways to load attacking players in a mock starting line-up and the end result is unrealistic.

This is my starting XI…

I love the front three with Luis Diaz, Mohamed Salah flanking Erling Haaland - if this team was on the field this could very well be a top three, top five attacking three in the tournament.

Overall I like the options I could have off the bench in all positions and I would say this squad is good enough to potentially make a quarterfinal run.

Now you may be wondering who missed out on the roster of players who won’t take part in the World Cup. I've already mentioned Firmino and some of the Italian players in the mix, but others such as Jadon Sancho, Dejan Kulusevski, Ferland Mendy, Tomas Soucek and Nordi Mukiele are among those that were close to make my team.

Who else would’ve you called to you team, let me know in the comments.