Wataru Endo ruled out of 2026 FIFA World Cup due to foot injury
Wataru Endo, captain of Japan’s national team, was ruled out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup due to a foot injury. He retired from international football following the decision. Endo underwent surgery for a broken left foot in February, according to Bluesky. He played only half of Japan’s warm-up friendly against Iceland on May 31 before being substituted due to discomfort, according to ESPN.com. After
Wataru Endo, captain of Japan’s national team, was ruled out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup due to a foot injury. According to Al Jazeera, Endo retired from international football after being ruled out of the tournament. Endo underwent surgery for a broken left foot in February, according to Bluesky. He played only half of Japan’s warm-up friendly against Iceland on May 31 before being substituted due to discomfort, according to ESPN.com. Concerns arose about Endo’s fitness after the Iceland friendly. Japan was scheduled to open their 2026 FIFA World Cup Group F campaign against the Netherlands, according to ESPN.com. Endo plays for Liverpool, according to Bluesky.
This account was written only from facts that survived Augur's
corroboration pass — 2 corroborated across opposed news blocs,
0 contested (attributed to both sides), 5
single-source (attributed). Nothing was added; no significance was inferred.
Model Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct.
See the evidence & the verbatim quotes →