What we learned about Leeds United's World Cup stars as Spain seal victory in final vs Argentina

Leeds United saw four of their players starring at this summer's World Cup.

The curtain has fallen on the 2026 World Cup, and it's Spain who are taking the applause after being crowned champions for the second time in their history.

It was a tournament that nobody will ever forget for a whole host of reasons, and Leeds' fingerprints were left on it as well.

Gabriel Gudmundsson (Sweden), Brenden Aaronson (USA), Noah Okafor (Switzerland) and Ao Tanaka (Japan) all represented their respective nations with varying degrees of success.

Some played almost every minute, others barely saw the pitch in North America.

MOT Leeds News takes a look at how each of the Whites' four players fared across the pond, and what the key things are we can take from their displays.

Why Gabriel Gudmundsson may have opened Daniel Farke's eyes

Starting with Leeds' Swedish left wing-back, Gudmundsson played a key role in Graham Potter's team at the World Cup.

The 27-year-old started all four of Sweden's games at the tournament, before they were knocked out in the round of 32 by France.

Perhaps the big thing Leeds will have learnt from watching Gudmundsson this summer is that he's perhaps more versatile than they realised.

Indeed, against Tunisia and the Netherlands in Sweden's first two group games, he was deployed in his usual left wing-back position.

However, in the final group stage match with Japan he operated as the left centre-back in a back three and played very well, and against France, he was playing as a traditional left-back in a 4-4-2.

Daniel Farke will of course have been aware of his ability to play as a left-back, but seeing him line up as a centre-back may just have opened his mind to new tactical possibilities with him at Elland Road moving forward.

One Leeds player who may have lost some favour with his Whites boss due to his World Cup offering, however, is Aaronson.

Why Aaronson had World Cup to forget

A home World Cup meant Aaronson would've been desperate to play a big part in Mauricio Pochettino's USA squad.

Unfortunately, that wasn't to be the case, as the 25-year-old attacking midfielder saw the pitch in just one of the USA's five games at the tournament, culminating in a mere 77 minutes of action.

That came in the 3-2 loss to Turkey in their final group stage match, and perhaps the big thing Leeds will learn from this as that his poor display in this match came from being deployed as a right winger.

He started the 2025-26 season playing in that position quite heavily for Leeds, but transitioned into more of an attacking midfield role as well as some opportunities from the left during the second half of the campaign.

As such, Farke may need to take this as further evidence that playing him here is not how you get the best out of him moving forward.

Aaronson's midfield partner, Tanaka, did enjoy a more productive World Cup though.

How Tanaka may have kept himself in Farke's thinking

MOT Leeds News covered Tanaka's costly mistake that enabled Brazil to score a late winner against Japan in the round of 32.

The Leeds midfielder momentarily won the ball back on the edge of his own back, but then gave it away before the ball eventually found its way to Gabriel Martinelli who netted a 95th-minute winner.

Tanaka's World Cup shouldn't be defined by that one moment though, as aside from it, the 27-year-old played very well.

As per FotMob, he completed all three of his dribble attempts successfully, wasn't dispossessed once, completed 91.3 per cent of his passes and won 63 per cent of his duels, all of which ranking amongst the best in his position.

Crucially for Leeds' sake though, Tanaka's strong displays against Tunisia and Sweden came in a Japan team playing with a back three alongside wing-backs, with Tanaka playing both in the left and right of a central midfield pairing.

Farke has moved Leeds into more of a back three flanked by wing-backs team now, and so Tanaka will have further proved to the German that he can star in this system.

However, the Leeds star who had the quietest World Cup of them all was Okafor.

How Okafor's World Cup passed him by

Okafor ended the 2025-26 season with Leeds in good form, scoring six goals in his last seven Premier League games of the campaign.

As such, it was hoped that he would take that form into the World Cup with Switzerland, but that wasn't the case.

In fact, of the six games the Swiss played at the tournament before being knocked out in the quarter-finals, Okafor played in just one of them, and only for 19 minutes.

Because of this, we haven't really learnt anything more about what he could offer Leeds next season by way of analysing how Switzerland use him.

Instead, probably the main takeaway from his tournament is that he shouldn't have any problems being fully rested and ready to go for his second term in West Yorkshire.

It's also worth a quick mention for Tarik Muharemovic, who of course is now a Leeds player but wasn't during the World Cup.

He played in three of Bosnia's four games, and he would've no doubt appeared in all of them had it not been for his red card against Switzerland.

Aside from that game, he did play well in his other two outings, and looks to be a player Leeds fans will quickly fall in love with over the coming years.