Scotland’s World Cup Quarter-Finalists

Every player to feature in a World Cup quarter-final and play club football in Scotland.

Rangers’ Nicolas Raskin started tonight’s World Cup quarter-final against Spain, a match Belgium lost 2-1 as the Spaniards progressed to set up a semi-final against France on Tuesday at 8pm.

Raskin was the first Scottish-based player to start a World Cup quarter-final since Josip Juranović for Croatia at the last World Cup in Qatar. For Rangers, he was the first quarter-final starter since Brian Laudrup in 1998 against Brazil, although Laudrup had officially joined Chelsea two days before the match.

For this exercise, I have counted the team that the player represented in the season leading up to the World Cup, and hence Laudrup is included. By the same criteria, I omit Arthur Numan, who had joined Rangers in May 1998 but was yet to play for the club before starting the World Cup quarter-final for the Netherlands.

The following graphic lists all World Cup quarter-finalists who played in Scotland, had previously played in Scotland, or would later sign for a Scottish club. The next graphic is the same idea, but for semi-finalists, something Raskin will not be. Rangers’ Thelo Aasgaard of Norway could still join that list, should Norway overcome England tomorrow night at 10pm. The article ends with the nine World Cup finalists to have played their club football in Scotland at some stage in their career.

This data was quickly pulled from my own spreadsheet vault, and I am less confident about the level of lineup data I have pre-2000. There may be some players omitted especially in earlier World Cups - please point any out if you notice them and I can add them in post-publication.

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Quarter-Finalists

In total, only seven players have started a World Cup quarter-final following a club season in Scotland. However, there are 73 players who have been in a World Cup quarter-final squad and either played for a Scottish club at that time (19), had previously played for a Scottish club (13), or would later sign for a Scottish club (41).