Three weeks after the exotic Qatar World CupWhile waiting for the exciting semi-finals on Tuesday between Argentina and Croatia and the following day between France and Morocco, it’s time to start making numbers, taking stock with the cold but irrefutable numbers in hand beyond the sensations caused by the four survivors.
In these big global competitions there is always a study that reaches the fans, they say that in Spain there are many more clubs than in the national team and that, precisely, this theoretical lack of identification or patriotism is one of the arguments to explain why La La Roja it was not successful until Luis Aragonés arrived with that proposal of the “everyone’s team” or the “big national sit-in”.
If the typical study is done on the teams represented among the four semi-finalists, little surprising data comes out. According to information from ‘MisterChip’, Spanish football still has the most players at the World Cup, with a total of 22, followed by the Premier League with 16. Curiously, both Spain and England, the first in the round of 16, are eliminated and the “Pross” in the quarterfinals. Another paradox is that Serie A is the third league with the most players in Qatar, equal to 14 with the French and with one player more than Germany, yet Italy failed even to qualify after losing in the play-off against Fruit salad.
Atlético and Sevilla, on the podium
However, in the club section, the team with the most players in these semi-finals is Bayern Munich (6). Two Lega clubs appear on that podium, Cholo Simeone’s Atlético and Sampaoli’s Sevilla, both with five: the Argentines Nahuel Molina, De Paul and Correa, the Frenchman Griezmann and the Croatian goalkeeper Grbic in the mattresses; and the albiceleste Montiel, Acuña and Papu Gómez, as well as the Moroccans Bono and En-Nesyri, in Seville.
The fourth most represented club in the semi-finals would be Dinamo Zagreb, who contribute four players to the chess team, representative of that small Balkan country which has less than four million inhabitants and is already considered the Uruguay of the northern hemisphere.
Returning to the championship, Real Madrid would still occupy the third step of the international podium with the incombustible Croatian Luka Modric and the French Tchoauméni and Camavinga. The case of Osasuna is curious, a modest Spanish soccer player who has two semi-finalists who, moreover, by not playing against each other, could fight for the title. We are talking about the Croatian Ante Budimir and the Moroccan Ez Abde, whose presence guarantees the rojillos at least half a million euros of extra income. In addition, two players also contribute to this point: Barça (Koundé and Dembelé), Villarreal (Rulli and Foyth) and Betis (Pezzella and Guido), and one from Valladolid (El Yamiq).
Looking back, when the ball started to turn on November 20 with the opening duel between the hosts and Ecuador at the Al Bayt stadium, in a 2-0 victory for the South Americans, Barça were not only the king undisputed of the championship in the World Cup, but also the most represented club in Qatar. After the arrival of Alejandro Balde to the concentration of Luis Enrique’s squad to replace the injured José Luis Gayà, the Barça club had as many as 17 players in the World Cup.
According to the typical FIFA ranking, the Catalan team was followed in the ‘top 5’ by Julian Nagelsmann’s Bayern Munich and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, both with 16 players in Qatar; Doha’s Al-Sadd with 15 players and Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United (14).
As for the national championship, 18 of the 20 teams, all except Elche and Girona, have participated in the World Cup. At 17 for Barça, Real Madrid follow in the table, with 12, two more than Atlético de Madrid. In addition, Sevilla contributed a dozen players, twice as many as Betis and Valencia. With four, Villarreal; with three, Athletic and Mallorca; Celta, Valladolid, Osasuna and Getafe appeared with two, while Real Sociedad, Espanyol, Almería, Rayo Vallecano and Cadiz had at least one representative.
