A lot of football has been played in the last year, as there was practically no summer break, and the presence of many different competitions at club and national level squeezed the players as much as possible. However, some of them are indispensable for their teams and they had to play as many matches as possible. Apart from a jump in the percentage of injuries, all this has led to the question of the extent to which physical training will play a role in the performance of individual teams at Euro 2020. Let’s see which country’s players have played the most matches before the start of the championship, according to Transfermarkt, determining the number of matches per player on average.
With the fewest matches on average, a player from 29.2 matches is one of the outsiders of the championship, Finland, who failed to leave his group. Curiously, one of their leading players, Glenn Camara of Rangers, played 63 games, which is twice the average. Very close to the Scandinavians are Slovakia with an average of 30.5 games per player and Northern Macedonia with 31.8 games.
Among the considered favorites for the trophy with the least played matches were Belgium – 39.2 matches on average for a player from the team. The leader in this respect is Yuri Telemans with 62 games. With an average of 39.7 games per player is the extremely strong team of Denmark, where obviously the players are well trained.
As expected, the players of the top teams have played the most matches, with Italy with 44.2 games per player on average, Croatia with 44.4, Spain with 44.8 and England with 46.6. Disappointed Germany and the Netherlands have 45.5 and 45.2 games per player on average, respectively, and the considered French team is the absolute leader in this indicator with a total of 48.2 games played per player per team.
However, the information about the specific players who played the most matches in the season before the start of Euro 2020 is also interesting. Premier League. The other two are Barcelona players, Frankie De Jong and Antoine Griezmann. However, the sole leader is the Portuguese star of Manchester United, Bruno Fernandes.
We should not ignore the fact that nowadays very serious attention is paid to the recovery process after every game. Along with each team there are always physiotherapists, cooks and everything you need so that their bodies are ready for the next battle. Obviously, this brings results, as Italy and England are the two teams that reached the final, and their players were one of the busiest in matches last season.
