Provisional squads have been named for the upcoming European Championships. As is usually the case, there are controversial selection decisions for the biggest nations who have an abundant talent pool to select from.
A recurring discussion point over the years is whether players for the big nations are not being selected for their national team because they are not playing in their domestic league. Fikayo Tomori (English but contracted to AC Milan) and Perdo Porro (Spanish but contracted to Tottenham) are two recent examples of omissions where I think no questions would have been asked if they were included. I wonder whether there is a career penalty - in terms of international caps accrued - from playing abroad ?
The provincial squads for the Big-5 nations are composed as follows : Germany – 22% players outside Bundesliga, Spain 28% outside La Liga, Italy, 10% outside Serie A, England 6% outside the Premier League and France 68% outside of Lique 1. The French are quite different, and usually are when it comes to a lot of Big-5 comparisons, it often makes me think if it should be the Big-4. Maybe this is a measure of domestic league strength when we have free movement of talent.