Several Spurs play on in the World Cup quarterfinals
By Aaron Coe
A full dozen Tottenham Hotspur players were participants when the World Cup started on 20 November; as the quarterfinals near, only six remain. Will one win the prize?
If the World Cup was a lottery and the clubs providing the players held the tickets, Tottenham Hotspur would have had a fair chance of winning. With 12 players represented at the Cup, Spurs were tied with Al Hilal for the 7th most players from a club, just one behind Real Madrid’s 13 participants. However, even for Bayer Munich, who had the most players participating at 17, as the competition moves forward, fewer and fewer representatives are left.
As the Cup enters the third weekend and the quarterfinals, only half of the 12 Tottenham players starting remain. Let’s look at who those six are and what shot they’ve got.
Can the Tottenham club captain defend his country’s title?
Longtime club captain Hugo Lloris is still the captain of Les Bleus as the French side look to defend their 2018 win in Russia. Neither Lloris nor his country has managed a clean sheet yet in this tournament, but France remains one of the favorites – second behind only Brazil, according to wynnbet.com.
France is looking to become only the third nation to win back-to-back World Cup titles and the first in 60 years. Brazil won consecutive tournaments in 1958 and 1962, and Italy won in 1934 and again in 1938.
Recent history tells us that Lloris is likely out of luck, but with Kylian Mbappe leading the way, Lloris may never get his shutout and still kiss the cup. If Hugo and France are to make history, they would be doing so at the expense of two of his teammates as Les Bleus play England on Saturday.