Argentina’s forward Nico Paz takes part in a training session at the Sporting KC Training Centre in Kansas City on June 23, 2026, during the 2026 World Cup football tournament.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Jordan’s Ali Olwan embraces head coach Jamal Sellami after the World Cup Group J soccer match against Austria in Santa Clara, Calif., near San Francisco, on June 16, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP

Jordan’s Ali Olwan embraces head coach Jamal Sellami after the World Cup Group J soccer match against Austria in Santa Clara, Calif., near San Francisco, on June 16, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP

The final countdown is officially on for the biggest, most expansive sporting spectacle on the planet, the 48-team FIFA World Cup 2026.

For the first time in football history, an expanded field of 48 nations will descend upon the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The historic tournament kicks off on June 11.

Argentina, Algeria, Austria, and Jordan are part of Group J.

Below are the definitive, official player rosters representing their countries on FIFA World Cup.

Argentina full squad list

Goalkeepers: Juan Musso, Geronimo Rulli, Emiliano Martinez

Defenders: Leonardo Balerdi, Nicolás Tagliafico, Gonzalo Montiel, Lisandro Martínez, Cristian Romero, Nicolás Otamendi, Facundo Medina, Nahuel Molina.

Midfielders: Leandro Paredes, Rodrigo De Paul, Valentin Barco, Giovani Lo Celso, Exequiel Palacios, Nico Gonzalez, Alexis Mac Allister, and Enzo Fernandez.

Forwards: Julian Alvarez, Lionel Messi, Thiago Almada, Giuliano Simeone, Nico Paz, Jose Manuel Lopez, and Lautaro Martinez.

Algeria Full Squad List

Goalkeepers: Melvin Mastil, Oussama Benbot, and Luca Zidane.

Defenders: Aissa Mandi, Achref Abada, Mohamed Amine Tougai, Zineddine Belaid, Jaouen Hadjam, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Rafik Belghali, Ramy Bensebaini, and Samir Chergui.

Midfielders: Ramiz Zerrouki, Houssem Aouar, Fares Chaibi, Hicham Boudaoui, Nabil Bentaleb, Ibrahim Maza, and Yassine Titraoui.

Forwards: Riyad Mahrez, Amine Gouiri, Anis Hadj Moussa, Nadhir Benbouali, Mohamed Amoura, Adil Boulbina,, and Fares Ghedjemis.

Austria Full Squad List

Goalkeepers: Alexander Schlager, Florian Wiegele, and Patrick Pentz.

Defenders: David Affengruber, Kevin Danso, Stefan Posch, David Alaba, Philipp Lienhart, Phillip Mwene, Marco Friedl, and Michael Svoboda.

Midfielders: Xaver Schlager, Nicolas Seiwald, Marcel Sabitzer, Florian Grillitsch, Carney Chukwuemeka, Romano Schmid, Christoph Baumgartner, Konrad Laimer, Alexander Prass, Paul Wanner, and Alessandro Schoepf.

Forwards: Marko Arnautovic, Michael Gregoritsch, Sasa Kalajdzic, and Patrick Wimmer.

Jordan Full Squad List

Goalkeepers: Yazeed Abulaila, Nour Baniateyah, and Abdallah Alfakhori.

Defenders: Mohammad Abuhasheesh, Abdallah Nasib, Husam Abudahab, Yazan Alarab, Mohammad Abualnadi, Saleem Obaid, Saed Alrosan, Ehsan Haddad, and Anas Badawi.

Midfielders: Amer Jamous, Noor Alrawabdeh, Rajaei Ayed, Ibrahim Sadeh, Mohammad Abughoush, Mohannad Abutaha, Nizar Alrashdan, and Mohammad Aldaoud.

Forwards: Mohammad Abuzraiq, Ali Olwan, Mousa Altamari, Odeh Fakhoury, Mahmoud Almardi, and Ali Azaizeh.

Published – June 09, 2026 02:17 pm IST

Vienna:

A 14-year-old boy died and four other people were injured in a knife attack in southern Austria on Saturday, police said, adding they have arrested a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker.

“A man randomly attacked passers-by with a knife,” police spokesman Rainer Dionisio told AFP of the incident in the city of Villach. “One victim, a 14-year-old boy, died.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Austria’s Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl leaves the presidential office, in Vienna, Austria, on January 06, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

The leader of Austria’s Freedom Party received a mandate Monday (January 6, 2025) to form a new government, which would be the first headed by the far right since World War II if he succeeds.

The Freedom Party, led by Herbert Kickl, won Austria’s parliamentary election in September, taking 28.8% of the vote and beating outgoing Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservative Austrian People’s Party into second place.

Also read: What is the delay in forming a government in Austria? | Explained

But in October, President Alexander Van der Bellen gave Nehammer the first chance to form a new government after Nehammer’s party said it wouldn’t go into government with the Freedom Party under Kickl and others refused to work with the Freedom Party at all. Those efforts to form a governing alliance without the far right collapsed in the first few days of the new year and Nehammer said Saturday that he would resign.

The People’s Party then signaled that it might be open to working under Kickl. Van der Bellen said after meeting Kickl for about an hour at the presidential palace Monday that he had tasked the Freedom Party leader with holding talks with the People’s Party to form a new government.

“I did not take this step lightly,” the president told reporters. “I will continue to take care that the principles and rules of our constitution are correctly respected and adhered to.” The far right and the conservatives have governed together before, but on previous occasions with the Freedom Party as the junior partner. Most recently, they ran Austria from 2017 to 2019 in a government in which Kickl — a 56-year-old with a taste for provocation — served as interior minister. It collapsed in a scandal surrounding the Freedom Party’s leader at the time.

Coalition talks between the far right and conservatives aren’t guaranteed to succeed, but there are no longer any other realistic options in the current parliament and polls suggest that a new election soon could strengthen the Freedom Party further.

In its election programme titled “Fortress Austria,” the Freedom Party has called for the “remigration of uninvited foreigners,” for achieving a more “homogeneous” nation by tightly controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum via an emergency law.

The Freedom Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine and wants to bow out of the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany. Kickl has criticised “elites” in Brussels and called for some powers to be brought back from the European Union to Austria.

Van der Bellen noted that the new government won’t face an easy task.

“The economic environment is difficult. Austria is in a persistent recession, unemployment is rising; at the same time our state budget must be restructured,” he said. “It’s not likely that all the measures will be popular, but they will have to be implemented.” He also pointed to the geopolitical threats Austria faces, particularly as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and pointed to the importance of “constructively strengthening European cooperation in the Union, also in the interest of Austrian industry and exporters.” And the head of state, a liberal who originally hails from the environmentalist Greens, said he and Kickl had discussed media freedom in Austria at length.

Kickl is confident of finding “viable solutions” in coalition talks, “and he wants this responsibility,” the President said.

Kickl strode past reporters without commenting as he left the meeting.

Vienna:

Austria’s ruling conservatives picked Secretary-General Christian Stocker as interim successor to Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Austrian media reported on Sunday, after Nehammer quit as his attempts to form a coalition government without the far right fell apart.

There was no immediate comment from the People’s Party (OVP), and Nehammer only told reporters after the party’s crisis leadership meeting on Sunday that “important and correct decisions” had been taken.

The surprise collapse of three- and then two-party talks aimed at cobbling together a centrist coalition that could serve as a bulwark against the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) after the FPO came first in September’s parliamentary election leaves President Alexander Van der Bellen with few options.

A snap election with support for the eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO still growing or an about-face in which Van der Bellen tasks FPO leader Herbert Kickl with forming a government are now the most likely options, with only limited scope for alternatives or playing for time.

“It is not an easy situation,” Markus Wallner, the governor of Vorarlberg, the westernmost of Austria’s nine provinces, told reporters before the OVP leadership meeting at the chancellor’s office on Sunday morning.

“I believe we must do everything we can now to avoid sliding towards a national crisis.”

Wallner said he opposed a snap election since that would delay the arrival of a new government by months. OVP governors are part of the leadership.

A spokesperson for Van der Bellen said he was due to address the nation at 2:45 p.m. (1345 GMT). Nehammer crossed the road separating their offices earlier to report to Van der Bellen on the OVP leadership meeting.

Nehammer insisted during and after the election campaign that his party would not govern with Kickl because he was too much of a conspiracy theorist and posed a security risk while at the same time saying much of Kickl’s party was trustworthy.

Nehammer’s successor will most likely be more open to a coalition with the FPO, which is formally allied with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party.

GROWING SUPPORT FOR FPO

The FPO won September’s election with around 29% of the vote, and opinion polls suggest its support has only grown since then, extending its lead over the OVP and Social Democrats to more than 10 percentage points while their support has shrunk.

The OVP and FPO overlap on various issues, particularly taking a tough line on immigration, to the point that the FPO has accused the OVP of stealing its ideas.

The two governed together from late 2017 until 2019, when a video-sting scandal involving the then-leader of the FPO prompted their coalition’s collapse. At the state level, they govern together in five of nine states, including in OVP moderate Wallner’s Vorarlberg.

The national dynamic is now different because if they were to form an alliance the OVP would for the first time be junior partner to the FPO, making the position of OVP leader difficult and undesirable to many.

After initial media reports that household names like former party leader Sebastian Kurz, who led the last coalition with the FPO and has since been convicted of perjury, could become OVP leader, Austrian media reported overnight that they were no longer in the running.

That left lesser-known figures such as new Chamber of Commerce Secretary-General Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, 45.

Meanwhile, the FPO hammered home its message.

“Austria needs a Chancellor Kickl now,” it said on X.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, who oversees the formation of governments, told political parties on Sunday to hold talks with each other after the far-right Freedom Party won a parliamentary election but fell well short of a majority.

“Now it’s about reaching out to each other, talking to each other, negotiating to find good, solid compromises. Finding these solutions can take time, and ladies and gentlemen, it is time well spent,” Van der Bellen said in an address to the nation, adding that he would also hold talks with party leaders.

Washington:

The United States provided intelligence to Austria that helped disrupt an alleged Islamic State plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert, the White House confirmed Friday.

“We work closely with partners all over the world to monitor and disrupt threats,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters

“As part of that work, the United States did share information with Austrian partners to enable the disruption of a threat to Taylor Swift’s concert in Vienna,” he said.

Three alleged Islamic State sympathizers have been arrested on charges of plotting a suicide attack at the megastar’s concert in Vienna.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Vienna:

The Vienna leg of a tour by American mega-star Taylor Swift has been cancelled after Austria arrested a man in connection with an Islamist attack plot, the organisers said Wednesday.

Authorities had earlier confirmed the arrest of a 19-year-old Islamic State (IS) group sympathiser for allegedly planning an Islamist attack in the Vienna region, warning he had a “focus” on Swift’s three upcoming shows. 

“With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety,” Barracuda Music said on Instagram.

The organisers added that all would-be concert-goers would have their tickets refunded. About 65,000 spectators were expected at each show scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The man, who had pledged his allegiance to IS “in recent weeks”, was detained in Lower Austria about an hour from the capital early on Wednesday, Austria’s top security chief Franz Ruf told a press conference.

“We have established corresponding preparatory acts and also that there is a focus of the 19-year-old perpetrator on the Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna,” Ruf said.

He said that chemical substances had been seized at the suspect’s home.

A second person believed to have been in contact with the suspect was arrested in Vienna.

According to initial investigation findings, both suspects radicalised themselves on the internet.

In November 2020, a convicted IS sympathiser went on a shooting rampage in downtown Vienna, killing four and wounding 23 others before police shot him dead.

It marked the Alpine nation’s first deadly jihadist attack.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)