Under the schedule described in the report, players who reach the final are entitled to three weeks off and would not return until 9 August. For Cristian Romero, Marcos Senesi and Pedro Porro, that would leave under two weeks before the Brentford fixture. Djed Spence, whose England campaign reportedly ended in the third-place match, could return a day earlier.
That is a planning challenge, not proof that any player will miss the opener. Tottenham must balance recovery with the need to prepare a settled side, while judging whether late-returning players are ready for competitive minutes. A short pre-season can also limit the time available to integrate players into the team’s tactical work.
The report also points to injury concerns elsewhere in the league, including Rodri, William Saliba and Amadou Onana. Those cases do not establish that the World Cup caused the injuries, but they sharpen the broader question of how clubs manage players through increasingly crowded schedules.
For Tottenham, the immediate issue is how quickly its returning internationals can train and whether the coaching staff will be prepared to ease them in. The opener against Brentford will offer the first visible test; the longer measure will be whether the squad can maintain freshness as the season gathers pace.