FIFA Files - 3

 A total of twenty five Spurs players have represented 16 countries other than England at the World Cup finals, spread across eight tournaments.
As you would expect the participation of Spurs players has generally increased over the years and the most popular tournament to date is 2010 with eight players, there were only seven in 2014. That last tournament did set the record for the most teams represented with five. 

---

Wales and Belgium lead the table with three players each. Behind them there are five countries with two players each, Germany, Norway, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Cameroon.

Whilst all the Welsh and Belgium players appeared in one tournament, only one other country has had more than one player at the same tournament, Cameroon 2010 and Cameroon’s Assou-Ekotto is the only ‘overseas’ player to feature at two tournaments.

Jennings

The first ‘foreign’ representatives were in 1958 when we had four players at the tournament in Sweden.

Three from Wales and one representing Northern Ireland.

1982 saw our first ‘overseas’ player, Ossie Ardiles (top) playing for Argentina.

---

The twenty five are –
Wales – Hopkins 5 games, Jones 5, Medwin 4,
Northern Ireland – Blanchflower 5, Pat Jennings 3,
Scotland – Archibald 3, Calderwood 2,
Argentina – Ardiles 5.
Norway – Thorstvedt 3, Grodas 4,
Germany – Klinsmann – 5, Zeige 5.
Denmark – Neilsen – 5,
Slovenia – Acimovic – 3,
South Korea – Young-Pyo 5,
Mexico – Dos Santos 4,
Cameroon – Bassong 2, Assou-Ekotto 5,
Honduras – Wilson Palacious 3,
Algeria – Bentaleb 3,
Belgium – Chadli 4, Dembele 2, Vertonghen 5,
France – Lloris 5,
Brazil – Paulhinho 6,

That’s a total of 101 appearances by ‘foreign‘ players.

Wales still has the most with 14, followed by Belgium 11 and Germany 10.

The leading 'foreign' individual  is Paulhinho (left)  with six games.

---

These figures are players / teams taking the field and does not include squad members who did not play, for instance Gomes was in the Brazilian squad 2010 but wasn’t selected. Please remember these figures are for players only during their time with Tottenham.  To avoid you cross checking the Leading Englishmen are Gary Lineker, Glenn Hoddle and Jimmy Greaves with seven.
The figures for the English players are detailed separately @ Connections - England 11, published yesterday at   http://www.indiaspurs.com/blog
The Connections series for England and other countries, the 2014 series Flying Down to Rio and this year’s FIFA Files can all be found @
 http://www.indiaspurs.com/blog/hotspur-towers-the-international-index

A number of sources actually conflict on line-ups etc, no great surprise, these figures have been based on the information provided by  FIFA, THFC and The FA.  In FIFA  Files 4 we look at the Tottenham players who have scored for their countries and those who led the side.  

COYS
Keith Harrison.
t- Keith 16024542
f - https://www.facebook.com/keith.harrison.9659
My profile / archive is @ http://www.indiaspurs.com/keith_harrison.html