A circular Sankey of player birthplaces. Each ribbon flows from the country where players were born
to the national team they represent at the 2026 World Cup, with arrowheads pointing to the team.
Roughly a quarter of the 1,248 players at the tournament were born outside the country they
represent — the most ever (289 per the TUDN/Macías census, 310 per Flashscore's count).
This chart maps … of them by name.
Only show countries playing at the 2026 World Cup
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Hover an arc or ribbon to isolate a country's flows. Arrowheads point at the national team.
All foreign-born players▼
Player
Born in
Plays for
Age
Flow summary (birth country → national team)▼
Born in
Plays for
Players
Highlights:Colombia-born Julián Quiñones scored the opening goal of the tournament — for Mexico.
Curaçao's squad is 25/26 Dutch-born (only Tahith Chong was born on the island).
France is the world's biggest talent exporter — 13 players for Algeria, 12 for Haiti, 11 for DR Congo, 10 for Senegal.
Bosnia's 17 foreign-born trace the 1990s refugee diaspora (Germany, Austria, Sweden…) — and they knocked Italy out in the
playoff final, so the Azzurri (and Argentina-born Mateo Retegui) miss a third straight World Cup. Brazil, Colombia, Panama,
Austria, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Czech Republic and South Africa brought fully homegrown squads.
Data notes:ages as of tournament kickoff (June 2026). Dataset merges the TUDN/Jaime F. Macías census with verified
corrections: Rafik Belghali born in Mechelen, Belgium; Diogo Costa born in Geneva, Switzerland; Brice Samba born in
Linzolo, Congo-Brazzaville; Samed Baždar and Jovo Lukić both born in Serbia (Novi Pazar and Šabac); Martin Baturina
born in Zurich, Switzerland.
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Supporter
Total
Goals
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viz.
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