Lewandowski misses out on World Cup - who else won't be there?

Robert Lewandowski’s glittering résumé – more than 700 senior goals, 10 Bundesliga titles, two La Liga crowns and a Champions-League winner’s medal – will forever lack a World-Cup chapter after Poland’s 3-2 play-off defeat in Stockholm condemned the 37-year-old striker to a second successive absence from football’s global showpiece.

The Barcelona captain, who scored four times during the 2026 qualifying cycle, watched Sweden overturn an early Polish lead to seal the last ticket from Europe’s path, leaving Lewandowski to contemplate retirement from major-tournament football before the 2030 edition, when he will be 41.

He is far from the only headline act missing when the tournament kicks off in June across Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Italy, European champions only five years ago, were dumped out on penalties for the third consecutive World-Cup cycle, Bosnia-Herzegovina converting their fourth spot-kick in a 4-1 shoot-out win in Turin. Gianluigi Donnarumma, who has been outstanding since a £26 million switch from Paris St-Germain to the Premier League, becomes the first player to win the European-Championship player-of-the-tournament award and then fail to reach the next two World Cups.

Serhou Guirassy’s 62 Bundesliga goals in three seasons and a Champions-League-best 13 strikes in 2024-25 were not enough to propel Guinea through Africa’s first round; the Syli Nationale finished fourth in their section with only four wins from 10 outings.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, fresh from scoring in PSG’s 5-0 Champions-League final rout of Inter Milan and a 12th-place Ballon d’Or finish, will also be absent after Georgia collected a solitary victory – 3-0 over Bulgaria – and three points from six qualifiers in a section shared with Spain and Turkey.

Nigeria’s Victor Osimhen, 26 goals for club and country this season, saw his side draw five of 10 group games and then lose on penalties to DR Congo after he had already been withdrawn, extending the Super Eagles’ wait for a World-Cup return.

Hungary captain Dominik Szoboszlai, who rifled in 12 long-range goals for Liverpool this term, was left to rue a stoppage-time collapse against the Republic of Ireland that flipped a 2-1 lead into a 3-2 defeat and cost his nation a play-off berth.

They will be joined on the sidelines by a host of established names: goalkeeper Jan Oblak (Slovenia), left-back Milos Kerkez (Hungary), centre-half Nikola Milenkovic (Serbia), defender Willi Orban (Hungary), full-back Ola Aina (Nigeria), midfielder Sandro Tonali (Italy) and winger Bryan Mbeumo (Cameroon).

When 48 teams begin the chase for the trophy this summer, the tournament will shine without some of the game’s most decorated performers.