One player arrives at Euro 2024 with the best goals-per-cap rate, and it’s not Cristiano Ronaldo.
One player will break the record as the oldest men’s player in European Championship history, and it’s… not Cristiano Ronaldo.
Nearly one in five players competing in Germany play their club football in one country, but which one?
Allow The Athletic to sprinkle some data-led seasoning on top of your tactical insights before the summer’s tournament, breaking down the make-up of each squad and providing some curious tidbits to fuel your excitement before the games begin.
This is your definitive data guide to the squads at Euro 2024…
How to follow Euro 2024 and Copa America on The Athletic…
Player call-ups per club
A total of 218 clubs have players representing their country in Germany this summer, but some are providing plenty more than others.
Among the clubs with the most players selected for Euro 2024, it is unsurprising to see Europe’s elite leading the way. Champions League winners Real Madrid have 12 players represented in the tournament — spanned across seven countries — but it is the 2023 finalists, Manchester City and Inter Milan, who have the strongest footprint in Germany with 13 players apiece.
That is before you consider each club’s representation in the Copa America in the United States this summer, with many club managers carefully managing their pre-season plans in a summer packed with international football.
From a European perspective, Pep Guardiola and Simone Inzaghi will be the busiest men keeping a close eye on their players’ fitness across the next four weeks.
Player call-ups per league
Like many recent major tournaments, the Premier League again leads the way as the league that provides the most players — slightly ahead of Italy’s Serie A.
Unsurprisingly, the top five leagues represented are made up of… well, the so-called ‘top five European leagues’. Ligue 1 has fallen a little behind its peers, with a comparatively low 29 players playing in France’s top division.
The Premier League’s 96 players span 21 of the 24 countries at the Euros, the widest coverage of any league in the world. The English skew is unsurprising but the range of representatives — from Portugal (10) down to Turkey and Romania (both one) — underpins the global brand of the Premier League.
Across the tournament, 114 players play their football in England, with 18 in leagues below the Premier League. That 114 figure accounts for 18 per cent of the tournament’s total — nearly one in five players, for those requiring the quick maths.
Italy are just behind (17 per cent), with 104 players — 91 of them from their top division, Serie A. Similar to the Premier League, Serie A provides players for a wide selection of nations — 19 in total, the second-most of any league.
At the manager level, the representation from Italy is highly impressive, with five — Luciano Spalletti (Italy), Francesco Calzona (Slovakia), Vincenzo Montella (Turkey), Domenico Tedesco (Belgium), Marco Rossi (Hungary) — comfortably more than any other nation.
Spain (Luis de la Fuente and Roberto Martinez), France (Didier Deschamps and Willy Sagnol), and Germany (Julian Nagelsmann and Ralf Rangnick) are the only other nations with more than one manager represented, further highlighting the hotbed of elite coaches currently coming out of Italy.
As a final fun fact, the two German managers bookend delightfully as the oldest (Ralf Rangnick, 65) and the youngest (Julian Nagelsmann, 36 years) in the tournament.
Who has the oldest squad?
Among the 24 nations, Steve Clarke’s Scotland have the oldest squad, with an average age of 28.3 years old.
Clarke has led his country to back-to-back Euros, maintaining a level of experience and consistency of selection during qualifying that has allowed his side to develop together. Within the squad, Billy Gilmour (23) and Tommy Conway (21) are the only players aged 23 or below heading into the tournament (and Conway was a late call-up) — only Romania (one) have fewer players in that age bracket.
As The Athletic’s Jordan Campbell reported in his nation guide, Scotland’s 26-man squad named for Euro 2020 had a combined caps total of 448 — of which veteran goalkeepers Marshall and Craig Gordon accounted for 99. The total is now 757, with 14 players over the quarter-century mark.
That experience will give them a fighting chance to improve upon their previous, winless campaign three years ago.
Behind Scotland are fellow Group A side — and their opening-day opponents — Germany, whose average squad age of 28.2 years old is the second-oldest in the tournament.
The experience of Manuel Neuer (38), Thomas Muller (34) and the soon-to-be-retiring Toni Kroos (34) will be crucial for the hosts this summer, but the fact a lot of their players are at their peak age suggests that they have a squad that is ready to win now.
Ironically, their creative spark is catalysed by two of their youngest players, Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz (both 21) — who will play as dual No 10s and be given the freedom to find pockets of space to inflict maximum damage to their opponents.
At the individual level, Portugal’s 41-year-old centre-back Pepe arrives at the tournament as the oldest player.
If he takes to the field in Germany, Pepe will break the record as the oldest player in European Championship history, currently held by Hungary’s Gabor Kiraly (40 years, 86 days).
Behind Pepe is compatriot Cristiano Ronaldo. You may have heard of him.
With a higher likelihood of scoring than Pepe, Ronaldo could become the oldest player to score a goal in Euros history, surpassing Austria’s Ivica Vastic (38 years, 257 days).
Ronaldo holds the record for the most European Championship games (25), and is the only male player to have represented his country across five editions of the tournament. Barring a disaster, the 39-year-old will extend that record to six this summer.
Who has the youngest squad?
The Czech Republic come into the tournament with the youngest average squad age, at 25.3 years old.
Manager Ivan Hasek will hope strong club connections can generate cohesive performances — 15 of the 26-man squad play for either Slavia Prague, Sparta Prague or Viktoria Plzen.
It is a young squad, too, with only two players aged 30 or over — the fewest of any nation in the tournament.
Turkey (25.8 years old) and England (26.1 years old) are not far behind as the youngest squads in the tournament, and will be hoping to blend youth and experience to go far in the competition.
Individually, England have three of the youngest players to be named in Euro 2024 squads — Kobbie Mainoo (19), Jude Bellingham (20) and Adam Wharton (20) — and no national team provides more in a table of the top 20 youngest players.
There is one player who does stand out, though. Spain’s Lamine Yamal has taken European football by storm for Barcelona this season, and if he takes to the field in Germany, he will become the youngest player in the history of the European Championship — just shy of 17 years old. His 17th birthday is the day before the final on July 14.
Who has the most experienced squad?
Having an older squad does not necessarily mean you are the most experienced on the international stage, so which nation has the most caps per player?
Croatia edge out Portugal here, but we must acknowledge the outliers dragging up the average.
No national team at this Euros has more players with 100-plus caps than Croatia, with Luka Modric (175), Ivan Perisic (131), Domagoj Vida (105) and Mateo Kovacic (101) boosting their average quite significantly.
A word must also go to Switzerland, whose average caps figure of 42.7 is the third-highest on the list. Rather than specific individuals, Switzerland have spread the experience across the squad, with 10 players aged 30 or above — the most of any nation and the only side with double figures in that age bracket.
Yes, we know what you are thinking — how is Xherdan Shaqiri still only 32?
Between Switzerland and Croatia, Portugal’s average caps are dragged up by Ronaldo (207), Pepe (137) and Rui Patricio (108) in particular.
At the individual level, Ronaldo’s 207 international caps are more than any other player at the Euros. It feels like this will be the last time we see him — and Modric — in a major international tournament, but we have said that before.
What we do know is that this will be Olivier Giroud’s final tournament for France, having recently announced his impending retirement from international football.
Giroud will almost certainly bow out as France’s all-time top goalscorer as he looks to extend his record of 57 goals.
Looking at the goalscoring trajectory of Kylian Mbappe — who will captain France in a major tournament for the first time in his career — it is hard to argue against that record being broken soon.
Who has the best goals-per-cap rate?
Sticking with the theme of goals, it is difficult to look beyond Ronaldo once again, with the 39-year-old holding the record for the most goals (14) of any player in European Championship history.
However, the all-time top goalscorer in men’s international football does not boast the best goals-per-cap rate among all players heading into the tournament. That honour belongs to Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku, who arrives in Germany with a rate of 0.74 goals per cap — 85 goals in 115 appearances.
After bagging two more goals against Luxembourg last week, Lukaku is now the second-highest European men’s international goalscorer behind Ronaldo — and the joint-sixth highest of all time.
Lukaku has been finding things more difficult at club level, but he looks at ease when representing his country. His 14 goals in eight games during qualifying was more than any other player and set a record as the most within a single qualification period. Impressively, only one of those goals came from the penalty spot.
Ronaldo will be coming into the tournament off the back of a prolific club season, but his 35-goal return needs to be asterisked due to the quality of the Saudi Pro League.
Harry Kane (36 league goals in the 2023-24 season), Mbappe (27) and Robert Lewandowski (19) come into the tournament with strong goalscoring outputs but keep an eye on Ukraine’s Artem Dovbyk, whose 24 goals for Girona were the joint-fifth-highest of any player in the top five European leagues.
Ultimately, we want the biggest names in Europe to do what they do best in an international shirt.
Friday cannot come soon enough.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
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