The 2022 World Cup in Qatar is entering the decisive phase – four teams are still in the race for the title. From which leagues and from which clubs do the players in the semi-finals come from?
The semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup are coming up – and only four of the original 32 teams are still fighting for the trophy. Since each team was allowed to nominate 26 players for its squad, 103 players are still available in Qatar (France decided not to make a later nomination after Lucas Hernandez left due to injury). How are these broken down by league and club?
Although the German national team failed miserably in the preliminary round of the World Cup, the Bundesliga is well represented in the round of the top four. A total of twelve professionals from the German elite class can still hope for triumph.
Primera Division most represented
For comparison: 19 professionals from the Spanish Primera Division are still at the start, the French League 1 is represented 15 times, 14 players earn their money in the English premier leaguethe Italian Serie A still has 13 players in the semifinals.
Five Bayern players in the World Cup semifinals
As expected, FC Bayern has the lion’s share in the Bundesliga: Dayot Upamecano is in the French defence, Benjamin Pavard and Kingsley Coman are not currently in the starting line-up for the defending champions, but have already been used in the course of the tournament.
Josip Stanisic is a substitute for Croatia, while Noussair Mazraoui would actually be a regular for Morocco, but missed the historic semi-finals against Portugal (1-0) due to illness.
This means that the German record champions have five players in the World Cup semi-finals.
Also represented by five players are the two Spanish teams Atletico Madrid (Nahuel Molina, Rodrigo de Paul, Angel Correa/all Argentina, Ivo Grbic/Croatia and Antoine Griezmann/France) and FC Sevilla (Alejandro Gomez, Marcos Acuna, Gonzalo Montiel / all Argentina, Bono, Youssef En-Nesyri/ both Morocco).
But there are also surprises: For example, the French top club Paris St Germain represented with only three games despite the semi-finals of the defending champions: Kylian Mbappé (France), Achraf Hakimi (Morocco) and Lionel Messi (Argentina).
Eintracht Frankfurt represented twice
After FCB, Eintracht Frankfurt is the only Bundesliga club to have more than one player in the running in Randal Kolo Muani (France) and Kristijan Jakic (Croatia).
The other German pros in the semifinals are Marcus Thuram (Borussia Mönchengladbach, France), Josko Gvardiol (RB Leipzig), Borna Sosa (VfB Stuttgart) and Andrej Kramaric (TSG Hoffenheim, all Croatia) as well as Exequiel Palacios (Argentina, Bayer Leverkusen).