The big footprint of English clubs on the 2022 World Cup

Lionel Messi-led Argentina, which suffered a shock loss to Saudi Arabia in its first match at the 2022 World Cup, has players from 18 clubs. The maximum number of players from a single club in its 26-member squad is just three. Top-flight talent, wanted by the clubs across the world, plays for these teams for 9-10 months in a year. Club football is their day job. The bane of this club-first framework is that when they turn out for the respective countries, they have barely played together. Barring some of the Middle-east nations, most countries at the 2022 World Cup carry a similar fragmented story in their squad composition. Further, a mapping of their club identities shows that England, where the club football ecosystem is the deepest and the salaries are the best, is a cut above all countries in sending players to this World Cup.