How White Was My Soccer Ball

So, it sounds like the Interwebs are blowing up with finger-pointing about race / ethnicity and the failure of the German national team to get out of the group stage in the recent World Cup. In particular, Mesut Ozil, a native-born German of Turkish extraction has quit the team, saying that he feels like a “German when we win, but an immigrant when we lose.”

So, I was curious ...  How diverse are each of the teams in the Cup, especially compared to Germany?


Methodology

Since I don’t have all the time in the world, I thought I would limit myself to Germany (on the losing side) and the four teams that made the semis (on the winning side). Interestingly, all were European, so that’s pretty much apples to apples.  I also threw in Sweden, Switzerland, and Denmark - 3 other similar teams that sort of represent the middle, the teams that finished not too badly nor too strongly.

For each team, I simply counted up the number of players who were at least half non-European. I then ranked the teams, based on what percentage of the team that accounted for, in ascending order.

So, how did things wash out?


Results

Discussion

Well, the first thing we need to discuss is Croatia. They are a real outlier here. 

Most European countries are definitely First World. You could say Croatia is as well, but there really is a difference between the large, rich, stable states that seem to be destinations for immigrants (mostly in the north and west of the continent) and those smaller, less rich and stable countries which immigrants are avoiding or simply passing through (mostly in the south and east).

Croatia definitely fits the latter. I mean, they only have 4 million people, for goodness sakes, date back to only 1991, and have a per capita GDP of less than $15,000 (less than half of the others we’re looking at).

Notice how everyone’s name ends in “ic”

As for the rest, the one thing I’m struck by is that the most diverse team was also the champion.  Yup, only 1 in 4 of the French national team was a “real Frenchman.” 

For Germany, it’s just the opposite – 1 in 4 were “foreigners.” Hmm … Perhaps Germany ought to take just the opposite approach (to whinging about their auslanders), and beef up their non-European presence.