99 World Cup players come from France

The World Cup is getting closer, and with each passing day an interesting new statistic emerges. This one is astonishing: every 13th player named in a national team's squad was born in France. It's hardly surprising given France's history as a colonial power, but figures like these serve as a reminder. A total of 99 players at this World Cup were born in France. Most of them, however, will represent other countries. Although they were born on French soil, for various reasons—most commonly because they were not considered good enough to represent Les Bleus—they will be playing under different flags. If it wanted to, France could practically organize its own mini World Cup. There are nearly enough players born in the country to form four complete teams, considering only those who made their nations' final tournament squads. As for France's own squad selected by Didier Deschamps, not all of the players were born on French territory. The vast majority were—23 of them, to be exact. Among the big names who will not be playing in the World Cup wearing the French jersey are Ryad Mahrez (Algeria), born in Sarcelles, Moussa Niakhate (Senegal), born in Roubaix, Ayyoub Bouaddi (Morocco), born in Senlis, and Aymeric Laporte (Spain), born in Agen. What about those who represent France but weren't born there?

WC Countdown: Best 11 Africans playing for other teams

Michael Olise was born in London, England. His father is of Nigerian descent and his mother is a French-Algerian, and he chose to represent the two-time world champions. Marcus Thuram was born in Italy while his father, Lilian Thuram, was playing for Parma. The third player on that list is Brice Samba, who was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and moved to France as a child. Had he not been left out of the squad, Eduardo Camavinga would also have appeared on the list, as he was born in Angola. A special case is Mike Maignan, France's first-choice goalkeeper. He was born in French Guiana. Although French Guiana is located in South America, it is an overseas department and is officially considered part of France. Looking at the other national teams, the largest number of France-born players can be found in the squad of Algeria (13). They are followed by Haiti (12), Democratic Republic of the Congo (11), and Senegal (10).

WC Countdown: How many Africans are in other teams?

The remaining France-born players are distributed as follows:

Ivory Coast — 8

Tunisia — 7

Morocco — 6

Ghana — 3

Cape Verde — 3

Egypt — 1

Spain — 1