Players by Domestic Leagues

Garrick · July 11, 2014

Something to keep you all occupied while you wait for that final.

The Guardian put together this little interactive on where all of the players in the World Cup ply their trade professionally.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2014/jun/24/-sp-world-cup-league-competition

Some things I found interesting:

The Prem is on top with over 100. Way clear of any other league

Serie A actually edges out both Bundesliga and La Liga.

After the big 4+1, the next highest league is Russia. A bit surprising, but if you mouse over and look at the individual players, you'll find that all 23 men on the Russian roster played in Russia.

Highest non-European league? Liga MX, with 25 players in 7th place. Next highest is MLS in 10th. Highest ranked Asian league is the J League in 12th.

Allezfan · July 11, 2014

Turks did very well to have 24 players there given their national team didn't make it.

Garrick · July 11, 2014

Allezfan said:
Turks did very well to have 24 players there given their national team didn't make it.

Yeah. That was another big surprise to me.

I thought Ligue 1 would've done better with France, Algeria, and Ivory Coast in the tournament, considering there are quite a few instances of French citizens eligible for France and a former colony deciding to play for that former colony instead, but I guess that just shows how fluid the borders are nowadays.

Also stunned by how poor the South American leagues did. Brazil was tied with Costa Rica in numbers sent.

SerenityNigh · July 11, 2014

Garrick said:
Something to keep you all occupied while you wait for that final.

The Guardian put together this little interactive on where all of the players in the World Cup ply their trade professionally.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2014/jun/24/-sp-world-cup-league-competition

Some things I found interesting:

The Prem is on top with over 100. Way clear of any other league

Serie A actually edges out both Bundesliga and La Liga.

After the big 4+1, the next highest league is Russia. A bit surprising, but if you mouse over and look at the individual players, you'll find that all 23 men on the Russian roster played in Russia.

Highest non-European league? Liga MX, with 25 players in 7th place. Next highest is MLS in 10th. Highest ranked Asian league is the J League in 12th.

I've seen another graphic (will dig around) for national teams and league diversity. Saw there that Russia was 23/23 domestic league and England 22/23. Obviously, England makes more sense to have most of its own in the domestic league, but it would be interesting to see WC finish vs. national team league diversity.

Garrick · July 11, 2014

SerenityNigh said:
I've seen another graphic (will dig around) for national teams and league diversity. Saw there that Russia was 23/23 domestic league and England 22/23. Obviously, England makes more sense to have most of its own in the domestic league, but it would be interesting to see WC finish vs. national team league diversity.

If you were to run those numbers, you'd come to the conclusion that club and league diversity is the best thing ever.

All of the South American powerhouses have very few of their players playing in their domestic leagues. Netherlands, Belgium, and Costa Rica don't have many either. Even France didn't have that many (8, less than the USMNT

).

Germany were the only quarterfinalist with a domestic majority. If you expand it back to the Round of 16, it's just Germany and Mexico with mostly domestic sides.

SerenityNigh · July 11, 2014

Garrick said:
If you were to run those numbers, you'd come to the conclusion that club and league diversity is the best thing ever.

Small sample size often leads to bad conclusions, but it's an interesting lead.

Allezfan · July 11, 2014

Garrick said:
If you were to run those numbers, you'd come to the conclusion that club and league diversity is the best thing ever.

As long as you only look at 2014 and not the all home based Italian and Spanish champions of 2006 and 2010. The german team was entirely home based in 2010 as well, so I imagine the numbers over the last 3 world cups would tell a very different story.

Garrick · July 11, 2014

Allezfan said:
As long as you only look at 2014 and not the all home based Italian and Spanish champions of 2006 and 2010. The german team was entirely home based in 2010 as well, so I imagine the numbers over the last 3 world cups would tell a very different story.

Indeed, as @SerenityNigh said:

SerenityNigh said:
Small sample size often leads to bad conclusions, but it's an interesting lead.

I don't think that club/league diversity = good should be the conclusion, but if you ran it off of just this World Cup, that's what you'd reach, which is kind of fascinating.

A lot of European teams, the only ones that can field mostly home-based teams, faltered early in the tournament this time. England, Italy, Russia, AKA numbers #1, #2, and #6 in the graphic, all should have made the knockouts if we were going straight chalk, but I suppose that's why we play the games

.

Allezfan · July 11, 2014

Garrick said:
A lot of European teams, the only ones that can field mostly home-based teams, faltered early in the tournament this time. England, Italy, Russia, AKA numbers #1, #2, and #6 in the graphic, all should have made the knockouts if we were going straight chalk, but I suppose that's why we play the games .

Uruguay were the top seed in the Italy/England group tbf. I wouldn't say if we were going straight chalk (whatever that means in british english) they wouldn't qualify.

Garrick · July 11, 2014

Allezfan said:
Uruguay were the top seed in the Italy/England group tbf. I wouldn't say if we were going straight chalk (whatever that means in british english) they wouldn't qualify.

Oh, they were? Funny. I figured their rankings would have suffered considering how they limped through qualifying, but I guess not!