England wins* the World Cup for an eighth successive tournament!
* The English league pyramid has provided the most players to every men's World Cup since 1998. More than 200 players at this summer's WC are contracted to English clubs
Football clubs in the English pyramid will contribute the most players to this summer’s World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico - for an eighth consecutive tournament.
No fewer than 205 players will arrive in North America under contract to English clubs, which is almost double the number from any other country. The next biggest “contributor” country is Germany (109 players), followed by Spain and France (88 each) and then Italy (71). The Italy figure is notable because Italy as a nation failed to qualify for this tournament.
The World Cup kicks-off next Thursday, 11 June, when co-hosts Mexico play South Africa in the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The first 48-nation World Cup will comprise 104 games (up from 64 previously) and unfold in 16 cities— 11 in the USA, three in Mexico, and two in Canada - before the final on 19 July in New Jersey will determine who gets to take home the trophy (below).
As the rest of today’s article will explore in detail below - and be available in full for all the paying subscribers without whom this site wouldn’t exist:
How clubs in the English football pyramid have contributed the most players collectively at every World Cup since France 98. At that event, 74 of the 704 players (10.5%) were contracted to English clubs. Italian and Spanish clubs sent 70 players each, German clubs sent 53 and Japanese clubs sent 30, with French clubs collectively in sixth place (29 players).
How, at every World Cup after 1998, the ‘Big 5’ footballing nations of Europe (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France) have always been the five biggest contributors of players, in some order, with England always sending the most.
How economics, or to put it more frankly, player wages, has driven this trend. English clubs were getting to close to being the highest payers around 1998, and after the 2001-02 season, overtook Italian clubs and then soared away into an increasing lead. Football is largely meritocratic, and (all things being equal) the best players get the most money, and so the best talent tends to migrate to the richest leagues.
How the breakdown of players by “league origin” has unfolded, in detail, at the World Cups of 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022 and this year, in tables that also detail which individual clubs have sent the most players to each of those tournaments.
I posted a tweet earlier this week that went viral, perhaps not unsurprisingly, as it said: “Crystal Palace will have more players (12) at the World Cup this summer than Real Madrid (10).”
The rest of this piece will delve into the detail behind that astonishing stat, and also consider the relative strengths of FIFA’s different confederations being represented this summer. Europe isn’t the strongest continent, by the way, while Africa, Asia and Concacaf are probably, collectively, much weaker than you may imagine, and don’t differ that much between themselves.
Anyway, onto the details …
