Roberto Martínez Names Portugal's 26-Man Mundial 2026 Squad at Cidade do Futebol on Tuesday 19 May — Ronaldo Captains, Vacancy Left by Diogo Jota Filled From the Liga Portugal Pool

Federation selector Roberto Martínez reads out the final 26 nomes for the FIFA World Cup 2026 at the Cidade do Futebol in Oeiras on Tuesday 19 May at 13:00 Lisbon time, the Federação Portuguesa de Futebol confirmed ahead of the press conference. The list reaches FIFA inside the federation deadline for the first 48-team Mundial, which kicks off on 11 June 2026 across the United States, Canada and Mexico and runs through 19 July 2026. Captain Cristiano Ronaldo, who turns 41 during the tournament, headlines a squad that has lost its talisman striker since the previous cycle.

The Diogo Jota Vacancy

The single biggest structural change since Euro 2024 is the absence of the late Diogo Jota, the Wolverhampton-then-Liverpool forward whose Selecção career closed prematurely. Martínez has trialled Ricardo Horta of Sporting Braga and Gonçalo Guedes of Lazio in the role across the qualifying cycle, with Pedro Gonçalves from Sporting CP also pushed up the depth chart. The replacement slot is the only forward decision that was still unsettled going into the announcement window; the remaining seven attack places line up around Rafael Leão, Bernardo Silva, Bruno Fernandes, Pedro Neto, João Félix, Francisco Conceição and Francisco Trincão.

The Defence and Midfield Spine

The four-name goalkeeping pool runs Diogo Costa (Porto), Rui Silva, José Sá and Ricardo Velho as the fourth option that FIFA's expanded roster allows. The centre-back stock — Rúben Dias, Gonçalo Inácio, Renato Veiga and António Silva — sits above a full-back rotation of Nuno Mendes, João Cancelo, Diogo Dalot and Matheus Nunes, who has migrated from a Manchester City midfielder into the right-back slot Nelson Semedo previously owned. Midfield leans on Vitinha, João Neves, João Palhinha and Rúben Neves with one rotational slot tipped to go to Samu Costa of Mallorca.

Group Stage and Base Camp

Portugal qualified as group winners in the September-November 2025 European qualifiers and lands in the Mundial 2026 group draw as a Pot 1 seed. Martínez confirmed earlier this year that the federation has booked a 'quartel-general' base in the United States for the group phase, with chartered movement between the three host countries pre-cleared by FIFA's expanded logistics team. Portugal's opening fixture is scheduled for the second weekend of the tournament.

What This Means for Expats

Match scheduling for the diaspora: Group-stage games will fall in late-evening Lisbon time given the eight-hour US East Coast offset and the larger Pacific gap, with kick-offs likely between 21:00 and 03:00 Hora de Lisboa.
Final pre-Mundial fixtures: the Selecção lines up two warm-up internationals in June against teams the FPF will confirm this week before flying west; both are expected to be played at the Estádio José Alvalade or the Estádio do Dragão.
Where to watch: RTP holds free-to-air rights to every Portugal match plus the knockout phase, with Sport TV carrying the parallel feed in cafés and bars. Members of the federation's Clube Portugal programme retain priority access to ticket allocations for the group stage.
What happens next: Martínez is contractually under FPF mandate through this Mundial cycle; the federation board reviews the next contractual step após the tournament regardless of result.