Netherlands vs Japan LIVE: Team news and Memphis Depay latest ahead of World Cup clash

England have arrived at their World Cup home away from home in Kansas City, the day after it emerged that equipment had been stolen from their base.

Some of the team’s boots and official tournament balls were discovered stolen on Friday, though Football Association sources have indicated the majority of the equipment, which wasn’t irreplaceable, has now been recovered.

The incident is expected to have no impact on the preparations of Thomas Tuchel’s team, but that isn’t the only extraordinary incident that’s hit the camp over the past few days.

It also emerged that England’s team chef was stopped from boarding a train to Orlando ahead of Wednesday’s warm-up clash with Costa Rica… because of his cooking knives!

And now, on their first night in Missouri, the Kansas City region has been hit by a tornado. They’ll hope this isn’t an omen for their campaign to come.

Ghana have spoken out against the “flimsy” grounds on which Thomas Partey has been denied entry to Canada for the 2026 World Cup, with sports minister Kofi Adams urging a review of the decision.

“If any Ghanaian is touched anywhere, we will not keep quiet over it,” Adams told local station Channel One TV on Friday.

“Through the appropriate channels, we have communicated to the rightful authorities and are requesting for them to use all processes to review and give opportunity for a review of such a decision that we think frowns on international laws and conventions, which both Ghana and Canada are party to.”

Switzerland were punished for playing with their food as Qatar snatched a last-gasp equaliser in their controversial Group B opener, delivering the country a first ever World Cup point.

Breel Embolo put Switzerland ahead from the spot early on, though the penalty was engulfed in contention after it was undetermined whether the player fouled was offside or not. No replay was shown, with Gary Neville labelling Fifa “a dictatorship” for a lack of transparency. Fifa later explained in a statement that a “a brief technical outage” had prevented the images being broadcast.

The Swiss took control of the game from that moment, and it didn’t look like they would cease it. But after failing to add to their lead with 26 efforts on goal, Qatar’s Boualem Khoukhi wrote himself into history in the 94th minute, heading home to open Group B right up.

A seismic moment for Qatari football, the match was still played out in front of noticeable patches of empty seats, despite the official attendance claiming the 68,500-capacity Levi’s Stadium was 99.2 percent full.

Everything you missed from day three at World Cup 2026

Scotland mark first World Cup in 28 years with win

We begin with a World Cup party in Boston. Scotland are back on the global stage for the first time in 28 years… and they have a win to their name.

John McGinn got the decisive goal, firing a deflected effort beyond Haiti goalkeeper Johny Placide after a brilliant Ben Gannon-Doak cross forced the issue.

Haiti, who never looked out of the game, fought until the very end in search of an equaliser, with striker Frantzdy Pierrot seeing a late header go agonisingly wide in what was probably the Caribbean nation’s best chance of the game.

But by clinging onto their clean sheet, Scotland were able to get the win over the line in a legacy-defining triumph for Steve Clarke. A huge boost to their hopes of getting into the knockouts, his side now go straight to the TOP of Group B after Brazil and Morocco drew 1-1 in New York.

The World Cup sees 48 nations divided into 12 groups for the first time in the tournament’s long history.

Co-hosts Mexico, USA and Canada are the top seeds in Groups A, B and D respectively, while Scotland are in Group C with Brazil, Morocco and Haiti, and England are all the way down in Group L with Croatia, Ghana and Panama.

Tonight’s match will be played at Dallas Stadium in Arlington, Texas and will kick off at 9pm BST (3pm CDT).

Viewers in the UK can watch the match live on ITV1 with coverage beginning after the conclusion of the match between Germany and Curacao.

You can also stream the game on ITV X.

Welcome to The Independent’s coverage of tonight’s World Cup action where we’ll have the updates from Group F as the Netherlands take on Japan.

The group stage has already thrown up a couple of surprising results and there could be another on the cards with Japan posing a viable threat to the Dutch this evening.

Kick off for this game is 9pm BST and we’ll have all the build-up, team news and updates from Texas.