Chelsea and Arsenal lead the World Cup way
An AFS survey of the official World Cup squad lists has revealed that the London Premiership duo of Chelsea and Arsenal will be the clubs with the most of their currently contracted players representing them in Germany during the summer.
The Premiership champions and Champions League finalists are two of only nine clubs who will have ten or more participants.
We have details of the other seven clubs, and more on English club involvement in the 2006 World Cup finals.
It’s Chelsea who head the list with 16 players while Arsenal just one behind on 15. The Gunners list includes the youngest player (Theo Walcott) and two other teenagers.
The full rundown on clubs with ten or more players on duty in Germany is:
16 - Chelsea
15 - Arsenal
13 - AC Milan
12 - Juventus
12 - Manchester United
11 - Barcelona
11 - Bayern Munich
10 - Dynamo Kiev
10 - Real Madrid
Of the 736 players in the official FIFA squad lists, 105 (or 14.27%) of them are contracted to English clubs at the end of the 2005-06 season.
Furthermore, 27 of the 92 Premiership and Football League clubs (or almost a third) will have at least one of their players involved in the world’s greatest football tournament.
NB The FIFA list shows Manuel Rui Marques of Angola as a Hull City player. Although he ended the season on a month’s loan at Hull, Rui is presently contracted to their Championship rivals Leeds United up to June 2007.
May 20th, 2006 at 11:59 am
With the 105 players presently in the Premiership and Football League(see above), England heads the list of World Cup finalists’ 736 players in the nominated squads who are currently contracted to clubs in their domestic league.
The top ten list is:
1. England 105
2. Germany 73
3. Italy 61
4. France 60
5. Spain 51
6. Holland 27
7. Ukraine 25
8. Mexico 22
9=. Costa Rica 19
9=. Japan 19
9=. Portugal 19
May 22nd, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Charlton Athletic and Sunderland are the only 2005-06 Premiership clubs who won’t have players representing them at the World Cup finals.