With the 2022 FIFA World Cup a few days away, the unique circumstance of the winter World Cup took away our focus from many pre-World Cup “traditions”, inlcuding the anticipation of the squad announcements. FIFA eventually released the official squads on Tuesday morning and we are going to take a detailed look at some stats and facts.
Manchester City couldn’t retain their “most best represented team” title as Bayern Munich will be the team sending the most players to Qatar. The Citizens will send 16 players to the World Cup, the same number as four years ago but the German side will have 17 of their own in Qatar.
Manchester City tied with Barcelona in second place, with the Doha-based team of Al Sadd coming right behind them with 15. Manchester United are in fifth place with 14 Red Devils travelling to Qatar.
The Premier League once again will be the most best represented league with 134 players going to the World Cup. It was never a competition as the English top division tops this chart with ease, a 51 player difference with second-placed La Liga.
The Italian league will be the fourth-best represented despite its national team’s failure to qualify.
Interestingly enough the EFL Championship ranks among the best represented leagues with 25 players representing the league in Qatar, 22 more than any other lower-tier league.
League One and League Two will be also represented with two players each, all of them Welsh.
Naturally, England is the squad with the most Premier League players, however, 26 out of the 32 teams will have Premier League players on their rosters. Brazil has 12, the most for a single foreign league, whereas Portugal will have 10 players, six of them Manchester-based.
Italy will not be the only country with a strong presence in Qatar despite the absence of its national team.
The Turkish Super Lig will be represented by 19 players whereas the Scottish Premiership and the Greek Super League will have 13 each.
The Qatari team will be the only debutant team in the World Cup and they have chosen to field a team of domestic players for their home World Cup.
All 26 players are playing in the Qatar Stars League, half of them playing for Al Sadd.
Saudi Arabia is also a similar case, fielding only players playing in their domestic league, with 12 of them playing for the Riyadh-based team of Al-Hilal.
England will not be fielding a full team of domestic players this time around as Gareth Southgate picked Jude Bellingham, who has spent the last two years in Germany playing for Borussia Dortmund.
On the other hand, Senegal coach Aliou Cissé only picked players playing abroad whereas Serbia and Argentina will have only one player playing in their respective domestic leagues.
The Qatari players have been waiting for a World Cup appearance for a long time and you can easily see that, by the fact that Qatar is the most experienced team in the tournament.
Almost 1500 international appearances have been made among the Qatari squad, 56.6 on average, led by captain Hassan Al-Haydos who has 169.
The least experienced team is Ghana with just 438 total appearances among its 26 players.
Almost a quarter of them came from former Swansea and West Ham winger Andre Ayew who has 107 caps for the Black Stars.
The Three Lions will be hoping to lift the trophy at the Lusail Iconic Stadium on December 18th but for now, they can lift the trophy of the most expensive team of the World Cup.
The English team, cumulatively, is worth over 1.1 billion pounds beating the Brazilian team who comes in second with a total value of about 995 million pounds.
The least expensive team is Qatar with a total value of about 13 million pounds, just in front of Kieran Trippier who at 11.3 million pounds is the least expensive English player.
The average player of the England squad is worth a little bit more than 42 million pounds.
Last time around England had the joint-second youngest squad of the tournament, with an average age of 25.6. This year the team grew to 26.4 years old on average.
Still on the bottom half of the table but almost two years older than the youngest team Ghana, who have an average age of 24.7, the only team below 25.
The title of the oldest team goes to Iran which has an average age of 28,9 just in front of Mexico which has 28.5.
However, Mexico can proudly boast about goalkeeper Alfredo Talavera who on the opening day of the World Cup, on November 20th, will be 40 years 2 months and 2 days old. He is the only player in his forties competing in this World Cup.
Canada’s captain Atiba Hutchinson will be the oldest outfield player and oldest captain at 39 years 9 months and 12 days old.
The title of the youngest captain has gone to Harry Kane. The Tottenham striker is the only captain in the World Cup under 30 and will be hoping to be the last one standing as well.
The youngest player overall is Youssoufa Moukoko of Germany. The Borussia Dortmund wonder kid will celebrate his 18th birthday on the opening night of the World Cup on November 20th.
