Rather than bombard you all with information I thought I'd split the Euro 2012 squad analysis
into two parts. I'll try and concentrate more on the players than the squads in this section.
Top goalscorers per nation
- Croatia – Eduardo (22)
- Czech Republic – Milan Baros (40)
- Denmark – Dennis Rommedahl (21)
- England – Wayne Rooney (28)
- Spain – Fernando Torres (27)
- France – Karim Benzema (13)
- Germany – Miroslav Klose (63)
- Greece – Thofanis Gekas (21)
- Holland – Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (31)
- Italy - Daniele De Rossi & Antonio Di Natale (10)
- Ireland – Robbie Keane (54)
- Poland – Robert Lewandowski (13)
- Portugal – Cristiano Ronaldo (32)
- Russia – Roman Pavlyuchenko (20)
- Sweden – Zlatan Ibrahimovic (29)
- Ukraine – Andriy Schevchenko (46)
Most capped players per nation
- Croatia – Josip imunić (93)
- Czech Republic – Petr Cech (89)
- Denmark – Dennis Rommedahl (113)
- England – Ashley Cole (93)
- Spain – Iker Casillas (129)
- France – Florent Malouda (74)
- Germany – Miroslav Klose (114)
- Greece – Giorgos Karagounis (115)
- Holland – Rafael van der Vaart (94)
- Italy Gianluigi Buffon (113)
- Ireland – Shay Given (121)
- Poland – Dariusz Dudka (61)
- Portugal – Cristiano Ronaldo (88)
- Russia – Sergei Ignashevich (73)
- Sweden – Anders Svensson (126)
- Ukraine – Antoliy Tymoshchuk (114)
England's Ashley Cole with 93 caps is the most capped player at Euro 2012 who is yet to score a
goal for his country.
The sixteen nations have now named their twenty-three man squads for Euro 2012. Three hundred
and sixty-eight players will travel to the tournament in Poland & Ukraine, some experienced, some
young, some with over hundred caps, some with none or very few.
The following table shows a list of Euro 2012 countries, the total number of caps in their
squad, the average caps per player, the number of international goals scored by the squad, the
average number of goals scored per player and finally the average goals per cap scored.
If you've ever wondered what would happen if you took every BBC match report from the 2011/2012
for every Premier League side and put it into a word-cloud, then wonder no longer.
Click to see a larger version of the below image.
Premier League 2011/2012 word cloud
Definition of "word cloud" from wikipedia: A tag cloud (word cloud, or
weighted list in visual design) is a visual representation for text data, typically used to
depict keyword metadata (tags) on websites, or to visualize free form text.
After posting a picture I took on my phone of an old Peter Beardsley figurine (that shows little
to no likeness to the former Everton and Newcastle United forward), I was sent this rather
wonderful advert (below). Peter Beardsley was one of many footballers from the late 80s who were
immortalised in plastic by Tonka.
Following on from the post I made earlier in the week regarding foreign players in the
Championship here we have the same information but for the top flight The Premier League. As you
would expect this division features a higher proportion of foreign players than the Championship.
However, it's interesting to note that 68 different nationalities were used in the Premier League
during the 2011/2012 season, one fewer 67 were used in the Championship.
Of the 699 players who appeared for Championship clubs during the 2011/2012 season 387 were
English. As you'd expect the other nations from the British Isles also featured heavily with (and
no, this isn't a joke) 52 Scotsmen, 50 Irishmen, 28 Welshmen and 19 Northern Irishmen.
The table below shows data on each of the twenty-four clubs in the Championship and the
nationalities who played during the 2011/2012 season.
With the regular Championship season now over I thought it would be interesting to take a look
at some players who featured heavily for their clubs during the 2011/2012 season. With that in mind
I've selected eleven players who played more minutes than any other during the Championship season
(excluding the playoffs).
I came across this picture in the A-Z of West Brom that I bought on ebay a few weeks ago. It
apparently depicts the opposition to Len Cantello's Albion XI in his own testimonial. The matchday
programme calls it a "Cyril Regis and Lawrie Cunningham XI" but the Albion A-Z just calls it a
"Black XI" team assembled by Cyril Regis.
A common narrative during the closing stages of football seasons is the importance of matches
between the sides at the bottom of the table. I thought I'd take a statistical look at those
claims. I've done this by taking a look at the record of clubs in the Premier League over the last
fifteen years who have finished in 17th and 18th position.
The guys at Football Attic are running a lovely project at the moment. They're compiling a
subbuteo style e-wallchart for football blogs. All bloggers need to do is to design their own kit
and it'll be immortalised by the wallchart. I quickly set off on my task by printing out the
template provided and sourcing some glitter glue pens.
I'm a big fan of word clouds as a data visualisation tool. The following five word clouds
illustrate the number of foreign nationals that have played in each of the five "top" European
leagues (England, Italy, Spain, Germany & France) during the current 2011/2012 season. If you want
to see more click on each image for an enlarged version.
In October 1978 the Zambian national side undertook a tour of England. They played five matches
in a fifteen day period against Shrewsbury Town (9/10/78), Wigan Athletic (11/10/78), Workington
(16/10/1978), Marine (17/10/78) and Bristol Rovers (24/10/78). It's likely that the tour was
arranged by Englishman, and then Zambian manager, Brian Tiler (a former Wigan Athletic player).
Team of the Week
African team of the week
Selection of a goalkeeper was pretty easy this week. Ivory Coast international
keeper Boubacar Barry not only kept a clean sheet against Westerlo but he also
scored a 63rd minute penalty to help his side Lokeren win four goals to nil.
It's an oft quoted phrase in football "A penalty shoot out is the worst way to lose".
But I think you have to have seen your side ship seven goals at home to Cambridge United or to have
seen your club lose 2-1 to an amateur side in the Welsh Cup Final to realise that's not necessarily
true.
Herve Renard's cheeky grin, bright white shirts and furious bawls at perenially offside strikers
are now a distant memory. Nevertheless, the wheels of African football continue to grind along,
domestic leagues are in full swing from Lubumbashi to Nairobi, and the heroes (and villains) of the
Cup of Nations are back with their respective European, Asian and African clubs.
