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The big footprint of English clubs on the 2022 World Cup

Nov 25, 2022 11:26 PM IST

The bane of this club-first framework is that when they turn out for the respective countries, they have barely played together.

Lionel Messi-led Argentina, which suffered a shock loss to Saudi Arabia in its first match at the 2022 men’s World Cup, has players from 18 clubs. The maximum number of players from a single club in its 26-member squad is just three. Top-flight talent, wanted by the clubs across the world, plays for these teams for 9-10 months in a year. Club football is their day job. The bane of this club-first framework is that when they turn out for the respective countries, they have barely played together.

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Barring some of the Middle-East nations, most countries at the 2022 World Cup carry a similar fragmented story in their squad composition. Further, a mapping of their club identities shows that England, where the club football ecosystem is the deepest and the salaries are the best, is a cut above all countries in sending players to this World Cup.

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English Dominance

The 831 players assembled for the 2022 World Cup otherwise ply their trade in 296 clubs across 43 countries. As many as 159 of them play in English football, across its many tiers. In other words, every fifth player currently in Qatar represents an English club. That is a reflection of the footballing culture in England and the financial proposition, powered by revenues from the sale of TV rights, the club structure there has managed to create.

Following England in club representation is the other four European powerhouses in club football: Spain (86 players in this World Cup), Germany (80), Italy (68), and France (57). Saudi Arabia and Qatar follow, but this is more a function of both countries featuring in this World Cup and drawing heavily from their local leagues. That’s also the case with Mexico, though not with the USA and Belgium — the other countries in the top 10.

[Chart 1]

Cream of Clubs

Of the 296 clubs at the 2022 World Cup, 139 clubs have only one player and 54 clubs have two players in the tournament. At the top end, there are 16 clubs that have more than 10 players at the 2022 World Cup. At the top end, Barcelona has 17 players at the World Cup, and Bayern Munich and Manchester City 16 players each. For these clubs, this poses a dilemma of sorts. Usually, the World Cup is held during the summer break of club football. This time around, it is happening during the club season. That means the club season will be compressed to squeeze in time lost, and many key players from the leading clubs would have played more football than they usually do in the regular club season.

[Chart 2]

Club-Country Conflict

For national coaches, the club-first construct of football poses a different dilemma: they have little time to implement footballing tactics and bring the squad gel together. Lionel Messi, for example, has played 166 matches for Argentina. But he has played 853 matches — five times as many — for clubs. At this World Cup, the mismatch in country-club game time is pronounced by the fragmentation of the squads.

Of the top 11 teams in the FIFA men’s ranking, barring Italy, the others are at this World Cup. The number of clubs from which each of these 10 squads has drawn its squad of 26 players ranges between 11 (England) to 23 (Denmark). Countries that have strong top-tier leagues (England, Spain, Germany) draw from relatively fewer clubs, invariably the top ones. Countries that don’t have a financially lucrative club structure have a more fragmented profile of players (Denmark, Argentina and Brazil).

[Chart 3]

The Global Game

Such is the global nature of football, and the primacy of club football, that only about one-third of players play in a league from the same country as the one that they are representing in the 2022 World Cup. At times, the variance is stark. For example, not a single player in the Senegal team plays club football in Senegal. Even footballing powerhouses such as Argentina and Brazil have a poor club-country overlap, with just one and two players respectively out of a squad of 26 players.

Only four of the 32 countries at Qatar have 20 players or more who play in the same league as the country they represent: England and Germany (which have strong leagues), and Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Only a handful of top countries have a healthy presence from one club. Spain has eight from Barcelona, Netherlands has seven players from Ajax, Germany has seven players from Bayern Munich and five from Borussia Dortmund, England has five from Manchester City. After that, it starts to disperse. That’s the global game -- country flanks club.

[Chart 4]

(howindialives.com is a database and search engine for public data)

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