{"id":247446,"date":"2026-06-09T16:49:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/five-under-the-radar-world-cup-players-to-watch\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T16:49:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:49:18","slug":"five-under-the-radar-world-cup-players-to-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/five-under-the-radar-world-cup-players-to-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"Five under-the-radar World Cup players to watch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\/topics\/fifa_world_cup\/17265\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Cup<\/a> kicks off Thursday, bringing no shortage of star power. But as the sport&#8217;s biggest names descend on North America for the next month, it\u2019s often the lesser-known players who can shape a tournament\u2019s outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Here are five under-the-radar players who could play outsized roles in determining how far their national teams advance.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson, 23, was one of the few bright spots in 2025-26 for Nottingham Forest, which finished 16th in the Premier League. Per TNT Sports, Anderson led Premier League midfielders in several categories, including most duels and possessions won and successful passes.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>\n    !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n    {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n    n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n    if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n    n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n    t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n    fbq('init', '1324276914788316');\n    fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\/articles\/five_under_the_radar_world_cup_players_to_watch\/s1_13132_43911243\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The World Cup kicks off Thursday, bringing no shortage of star power. But as the sport&#8217;s biggest names descend on North America for the next month, it\u2019s often the lesser-known players who can shape a tournament\u2019s outcome.\u00a0 Here are five under-the-radar players who could play outsized roles in determining how far their national teams advance. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6806],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-247446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gossip"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}