There were a few surprises in Thomas Tuchel’s squad of 35 players for England’s home friendlies against Uruguay and Japan at the end of March, but one name leapt out a little more than the rest.
Jason Steele, Brighton & Hove Albion’s perennial second-choice goalkeeper in eight seasons at the club, has received his first senior call-up at the age of 35, even though he hasn’t played a Premier League game since August 2024.
Steele, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, is a contender for this summer’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico — for training purposes. Tuchel can only name three goalkeepers in his final squad, but the German hinted on Thursday that he could take Steele too. “England has history to take a fourth keeper for training,” Tuchel told reporters. “We identified Jason as candidate. He’s in the March camp and has this chance.”
Speaking to the FA’s in-house media team, Tuchel elaborated on the plan.
“Jason is a bit of a particular one because we are planning to take four goalkeepers to the World Cup, and the fourth goalkeeper has a special role,” Tuchel explained.
“The (first) three goalkeepers will compete and support each other for the matches, but they will also compete, of course, for a place in goal.”
England manager Thomas Tuchel has explained Steele’s potential role (Benjamin Cremel/Getty Images)
“The fourth goalkeeper in the World Cup is then a specialist; He will support the goalkeeper group, he will support the goalkeeper coach, he will support a penalty-taking group and take a lot of workload off the other shoulders.
“We need a guy with quality, with experience, and with the right energy and attitude, and we believe that Jason is this guy.”
Steele’s club coach at Brighton, Fabian Hurzeler, had dropped a hint that Steele could be included by Tuchel during his own press conference on Thursday. When asked about the possibility of an England return for striker Danny Welbeck at the age of 35, Hurzeler said: It’s not only Danny, I also want to emphasise that we have a great second goalkeeper in Jason Steele who, although he is not playing, is also in incredible shape when I see him in training every day. It’s just impressive and when I need him, he is there. He has performed really well in the FA Cup. Therefore, he is a really good candidate as well.”
In the last couple of seasons, Steele has grown far more accustomed to a seat on the bench than a place between the posts. He made his last of two Premier League appearances in August 2024, right at the beginning of Hurzeler’s reign at the club. Bart Verbuggen, first-choice keeper for the Netherlands, has established himself as Hurzeler’s No 1, restricting Steele since the start of last season to eight other appearances in the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup.
Watching from the sidelines has been a familiar theme for Steele, dating right back to 2012 when, at the age of 22, he was part of the Great Britain squad that reached the quarter-finals of the London Olympics. He was the only member of the 18-strong group who did not get any game time, playing second fiddle throughout the tournament to Jack Butland, now the No 1 at Rangers in Scotland.
The following summer, Steele made the last of six appearances for England Under-21s (he was an unused substitute on a further 11 occasions), having played in all 46 Championship games for Middlesbrough in 2012-13.
Steele endured a tough time at Sunderland (Jack Thomas/Getty Images)
His career took a downward turn from there. He suffered successive relegations from the Championship with Blackburn Rovers in 2016-17 and with Sunderland in 2017-18. That error-strewn season with Sunderland was a low point — he was ridiculed by fans and Steele’s pain was laid bare in the Netflix documentary series Sunderland Til I Die.
“I’ve never watched the documentary and I don’t think I ever will,” Steele said in conversation with Glenn Murray, later a Brighton team-mate, on BBC’s Football Focus in 2023. “Because it’s a period in your life that you’ve moved on from now. By the end, I was thinking, I’m not sure this is for me anymore.
“I had three young kids, married, I lived in the area, and there were times when I didn’t even want to take the kids to school. That’s how horrible it was up there. Getting beat every week and you don’t want to look at your phone, you don’t want to leave the house.”
Steele has reinvented himself at Brighton as a highly respected member of the squad under several managers since signing on a free transfer from Sunderland in July 2018.
He has almost always been the back-up goalkeeper, initially shadowing Australian international Maty Ryan under Chris Hughton, then Spaniard Robert Sanchez under Graham Potter and Roberto De Zerbi.
There were two turning points for Steele when De Zerbi was in charge, which elevated his standing. In March 2023, Steele displaced Sanchez. The now-Chelsea goalkeeper took exception to De Zerbi’s decision, refusing to sit on the bench.
What a welcome for Steeley after he was named in the England squad… 🥹💙 pic.twitter.com/izJy48boj8
— Brighton & Hove Albion (@OfficialBHAFC) March 20, 2026
Steele justified his inclusion, helping the team to six wins, two draws and six clean sheets in the last 13 Premier League games to finish sixth and qualify for Europe for the first time in the club’s history.
Brighton signed Verbruggen from Anderlecht for £17million in July 2023 as the replacement for Sanchez. De Zerbi rotated between Verbruggen and Steele throughout the 2023-24 campaign, including in the Europa League.
De Zerbi’s decision in both cases was based on Steele’s superiority with his feet and his understanding of the way the Italian set up his team to play out from the back with patience and precision, picking accurate passes at the right moments to launch the build-up.
“Jason in possession is one of the best in the world, he is so good,” Brighton’s former goalkeeper coach Jack Stern told The Athletic earlier this season. “He looks like an outfield player in the way he moves.”
Verbruggen has held sway under Hurzeler, but the Brighton head coach has regularly referred to Steele’s value in training, in the dressing room and on the sidelines. Tuchel is clearly like-minded.
Squad cliques and boredom have often been cited as reasons for some of England’s failures in the unique demands of tournament football. Steele could be a unifying presence without much need for his gloves.