Analysis: club and country

Last time we talked about youth and experience, expecting to find they were inversely related, then to be honest rather skipping over it when we didn't. Ah, the scientific method. It gives us so much, and then I just shit in its face. Today, we're talking about the rather muddy interface between club and country, and in particular about which countries players mainly play in.

The country with most club representation is of course England, due to the spending power of the Premier League. 119 players play in England, with 97 from established top flight clubs. Promoted Leicester and QPR send 3, and relegated Fulham and Norwich send 5. Cardiff send 2, and let's just hope they can work out what colour shirt to play in. Bitter? Not any more.


You may have worked out that that leaves 12 from the lesser lights, and you'd be right to suspect that most of them are representing countries from outside the traditional football hotspots. The lowest ranked side with someone to cheer are Swindon of League One, who will be watching out for Massimo Luongo when Australia play. No, I hadn't heard of him either, to be honest, but he was once on Tottenham's books, although he never actually got a game for them. I'm sure he's great.

And I'm in no position to mock, for Swindon's single representative is more than Bristol City can claim. We nearly had an ex-player in the Australian squad, but Luke Wilkshire was the last player cut from their provisional list. We do of course have Albert Adomah of blessed memory and Ghana, who used to bang them in for us like nobody's business until he went off to Middlesbrough a year ago.

No, Rovers don't have anyone there. It's unlikely for a club of their level, to be honest. Well, yes, Swindon have, but - oh, sorry haven't you heard? Rovers aren't a League club any more I'm afraid. Hardly relevant in the context, and I don't know why I brought it up. To be fair, if we can count Adomah I suppose I have to give them Ricky Lambert, who played 128 games for them. Can you imagine? From the Mem to the Maracana in one lifetime. He must feel like the mother in Mrs Warren's Profession.

Of the Premiership clubs, Man Utd have 14 players there, more than any other English club. Chelsea have 12, Arsenal 10 and Liverpool 10, although by the time the transfer dust has settled and Lampard, Lambert and Lallana have relocated those figures will be significantly out of date.

Bayern Munich just top the club list though, with 15 players. After that it's the usual suspects - Barcelona, topping the Spanish list after a season where they didn't win anything else, then Chelsea, Real Madrid, Juventus and Napoli all on 12. Atletico Madrid are the trending team with 9, Diego Simeone having boosted his players' international careers as much as their club ones.

I wrote this in the hope that some kind of ending would just magically emerge, but never mind.What's next? A slight digression. I like digressions.