No club is sending more national players to the 2022 World Cup than FC Bayern Munich. Compared to previous tournaments, the number of Bundesliga players at the World Cup in Qatar rose again for the first time.
Four years ago at the World Cup in Russia there were only 67 professionals from the Bundesliga. In Qatar, 80 World Cup drivers are now playing in the first and second leagues – 17 of them alone with the German record champions FC Bayern. The Munich make up the largest fraction of national players who are nominated for the World Cup. This emerges from the official squad lists, which the world association FIFA announced on Tuesday (November 15, 2022).
FC Bayern leads the ranking with 17 World Cup players
With 17 players from eight different countries, FC Bayern is ahead of Manchester City and FC Barcelona (16 each) and curiously SC al-Sadd from Qatar (15) in the global ranking. Of course, 13 of them are for the team of the World Cup hosts. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are also the only two World Cup participants whose players are exclusively employed in their own country.
England remains the top global market, with the Bundesliga in third place
Since 2010 in South Africa (84), the number of World Cup players from the Bundesliga has gradually fallen. In 2014 in Brazil there were 77. Now there are 13 more than in Russia. However, the number of squad places rose from 23 to 26 per nation. After all, that’s 96 more footballers who are taking part in the World Cup this year. The number of players from the other leagues is growing accordingly.
In an international league comparison, the Bundesliga “only” sends the third most players to Qatar, as it did in 2018. England remains the undisputed top global market. There are 156 players from the English professional leagues in Qatar – almost twice as many as from Spanish clubs (86). The football leagues from Spain are still the second most players, but only five more than in 2018. Four years ago, there were 67 players from the federal leagues, so the increase is significantly higher.
Italy (70) takes fourth place in an international comparison. And that despite the fact that the Squadra Azzurra, like in 2018, did not qualify for the World Cup. France follows in fifth place with 55 players. The defending champions are also the country among top European nations that has the fewest players from their own league (6) in Qatar.
As in 2018, Switzerland and Japan take the most players from Germany (7 each). They are followed by Denmark and France, each with six World Cup participants from the Bundesliga.