Some fun facts ahead of this year's international football spectacle.
June 4, 2018, marked the deadline for all 32 national teams participating in this year’s World Cup to submit their final list of 23 footballers for the tournament, which saw some surprising eliminations all around, reports Goal.hr on June 5, 2018.
Now that we finally have the crowning list of participants for Russia this year, we’ve learned some interesting statistics to share you today about the players and teams at this year's World Cup.
Without further ado...
736 footballers are participating in this year’s World Cup who come from 310 clubs from all over the world. Among the clubs, only two are Croatian - Dinamo and Rijeka.
Croatia has the tallest player at the 2018 World Cup, which is Split native Lovre Kalinić who stands at 201 centimeters (6 feet 7 inches). The shortest player in this year’s tournament is Quintero from Panama, Saudi Arabian Yahia and Swiss player Shaqiri, who all stand at 165 centimeters.
The youngest footballer at the World Cup this year is Australian Daniel Arzani (19) born on January 4, 1999. Arzani is some 26 years younger than the oldest player in the tournament, which is Egypt’s legendary goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary, who was born on January 15, 1973. El-Hadary will make history this summer in Russia as the oldest player ever in the World Cup.
The heaviest player in Russia this summer will be Panamanian Roman Torres who is 99 kg, while the lightest will be Takashi Inui (Japan), Javier Aquino (Mexico) and Mbar Boussoufa (Morocco) who weigh in at 59 kg.
And if you thought that Croatia coach Zlatko Dalić does not value the Croatian First League, Croatia two players among the 23 who currently play in the national league - Bradarić for Rijeka and Livaković for Dinamo. Six national teams in the World Cup have fewer players in their respective national leagues than Croatia.
Specifically, Sweden and Senegal have no players in their national leagues, and Switzerland, Nigeria, Iceland, and Belgium have only one. Like Croatia, Morocco and Uruguay have two, Colombia, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Serbia, Panama and Denmark have three, Poland has four, and Peru has five. Spain has 17 of their World Cup players fighting in the domestic league, Saudi Arabia has 20, Russia 21, and England can boast that all 23 players are in the Premier League.
Barcelona is the first club to have a player in every group of the World Cup - but which clubs have the most players in this year’s World Cup? Manchester City and Real Madrid top the group with 15 (Real Madrid includes Luka Modrić and Mateo Kovačić), while Barcelona comes in second with 14 players (including Croatia’s Ivan Rakitić).
