English-based players accounted for a quarter of minutes played at the World Cup, Football Mad analysis shows.
The Premier League was the leading division at the tournament, with a total of 33,786 minutes shared between 121 players, ahead of Spain’s LaLiga (18,343), Germany’s Bundesliga (14,289) and Italy’s Serie A (13,865).
Added to 2,723 minutes from the Championship and 41 from League One, English clubs contributed twice as many minutes (25 per cent) as the next-most represented country (Spain, 13 per cent).
Apart from England and Wales, the United States were most-reliant on English-based players for minutes (51 per cent), ahead of Brazil (48 per cent) and Senegal (47 per cent).
A third of Argentina’s minutes (33 per cent) came from players who will be returning to England, compared with a fifth of France’s (19 per cent).
Meanwhile, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were the only two nations with zero representation from England’s domestic pyramid.
Alvarez emergence highlights Man City depth
Manchester City topped the list of most-represented clubs in Qatar, with their contingent combining for more than 5,000 minutes.
Pep Guardiola’s squad led the way from Barcelona, with Tottenham and Manchester United completing the top four ahead of Real Madrid.
Barca sent 17 players to Qatar but three never made it onto the pitch – Marc-Andre ter Stegen (Germany), Eric Garcia (Spain) and Ronald Araujo (Uruguay) – while all 16 Man City representatives featured.
The emergence of Julian Alvarez for Argentina underlines the strength of City’s squad. Despite playing second fiddle to Erling Haaland at club level, the 22-year-old starred with a four-goal contribution that Lionel Messi described as “spectacular”.
Man City players recorded the most minutes in the group phase (3,207) and the knockout rounds (1,973), although Alvarez was their sole representative in the final.
Atletico Madrid were the most common club on show during Sunday’s showpiece, with four players combining for 303 minutes. Antoine Griezmann, Rodrigo De Paul and Nahuel Molina all started the game, while Angel Correa came off the bench.
Spurs were the only Premier League side with multiple players on the pitch, in France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and Argentina defender Cristian Romero.
Aston Villa (Emiliano Martinez), Brighton (Alexis Mac Allister), Man Utd (Raphael Varane) and Liverpool (Ibrahima Konate) all had one player feature.
PSG stars perform
Paris St Germain contributed the most World Cup goals of any club (18), thanks to their star-studded strikeforce.
France’s Kylian Mbappe scored a hat-trick in the final to take his tally to eight goals for the tournament and win the Golden Boot ahead of Argentina’s Messi (seven). Neymar also chipped in with two for Brazil, while midfielder Carlos Soler scored in Spain’s rout of Costa Rica.
No other club reached double figures for goals, with Barcelona and Man City trailing far behind PSG on eight apiece.
Bayern Munich and Real Madrid players had a poor tournament in front of goal.
The Real party – including the likes of Vinicius Junior, Eden Hazard and Marco Asensio – mustered only three goals from 56 attempts, at a conversion rate of around five per cent.
Similarly, Bayern’s predominantly German frontline misfired as the 2014 winners crashed out in the group stage for a second successive World Cup.
Thomas Muller, Leroy Sane, Serge Gnabry and Jamal Musiala managed a solitary goal between them from 29 shots, while strikes from Canada’s Alphonso Davies and Cameroon’s Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting improved the club’s ratio slightly to three goals from 55 efforts.
