World Bulletin / News Desk
There are 8 groups of 4 teams which are a total of 32 teams competing, I’ll go through team by team and list all the Muslim football players in that team but first let’s look at the first glance of Muslim nations or those that have great numbers of Muslims in this year’s World Cup these teams should have entire squads of Muslim players.
- Egypt (group A)
- Saudi Arabia (KSA) (group A)
- Morocco (group B)
- IR Iran (group B)
- Nigeria (group D)
- Tunisia (group G)
- Senegal (group H)
So that’s 7 teams with Muslim player majority in total, with the exception of Nigeria, Iran and Senegal I think the rest will have full squads of Muslim players in this World Cup. I am also certain that Belgium and France like the last time around will no doubt have lots of Muslim players in their squad.
Before we go onto the entire list of Muslim players in the FIFA World Cup 2018, let’s have a look at some statistics of the above teams.
Egypt
Egypt appearing for only their 3rd time after topping Group E with a game in hand in the qualifying rounds, the last time they played in a World Cup was 28 years ago in the 1990 World Cup in Italy. They are currently ranked 31st in the FIFA World Rankings. Mohamed Salah plays for them too.
Saudi Arabia (KSA)
KSA has previously played 4 times in the World Cup, this will be their 5th time. They last played in Germany in the 2006 finals and are ranked 61st.
Morocco
Morocco qualified from their group in pole position, this is their 5th appearance in the World Cup though they past contested in 1998 in France. Currently ranked 40th.
IR Iran
Featured in the last World Cup and we wrote about their Muslim Players as well, Iran were the first team to qualify from the Asian confederation. They’ve previously appeared 4 times, this’ll be their 5th time and are ranked 32nd.
Nigeria
Nigeria, like Iran they too also appeared in the last World Cup finals, this will be their 6th time they have qualified for the World Cup tournament. Were the first team to qualify from Africa and are ranked 50th.
Tunisia
This is the 5th time Tunisia will feature in the World Cup, the also topped their group A to qualify. The last time they played was in 2006 and are currently ranked 27th.
Senegal
Senegal last played in 2002, this is their 2nd time. They are the highest ranked team out of all the above, currently ranked 23rd.