This section attempts to evaluate the impact that the various clubs have had on World Cup history.
Clubs should rightly be proud of the contribution their players have made to the cause of winning the World Cup. Certainly in 1966, West Ham had a special presentation of their 3 stars: Moore, Hurst and Peters to the home crowd at the start of the new season. It was as if West Ham had won the World Cup for England.
The analysis has become more complex in the modern era as far more players seek employment outside their home country. Back in the early years of the World Cup, and even all the way up to Italia '90, it was quite unusual for players in their country squads to represent overseas clubs. Mario Kempes in the 1978 Argentina side was a notable exception, plying his trade with Valencia.
The culmination of this analysis has been to construct an index based on minutes played and goals scored. In this way, I have discovered a list of 31 clubs who have contributed a minimum of 10,000 minutes of World Cup playing time and 10 World Cup goals, or an equivalent combination of minutes and goals on the index.
Some teams from the early years feature strongly but have virtually disappeared in recent tournaments. The South Amercian clubs in particular seem under threat. Uruguay's 2014 squad contains no players from their domestic league; what then of the past perfromances of players from Penarol and Nacional? Brazil are unlikely to field many players from Santos, Flamengo, Vasco da Game or Botafogo, but all of these have such a rich World Cup history.
in addition to the index, I have constructed dream teams for each of the 31 qualifying clubs.
Please let me have your feedback on this. I am not aware of any other study which has tackled this.