{"id":2782,"date":"2026-06-12T05:33:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T05:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=2782"},"modified":"2026-06-12T05:33:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T05:33:35","slug":"world-cup-2026-who-has-played-the-most-minutes-heading-into-the-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=2782","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Who has played the most minutes heading into the tournament?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">France must battle with both heat and fatigue if they are to win the World Cup for a third time. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Didier Deschamps&#8217; squad have been in action more than any of the leading nations, with 1,341 matches totalling 98,895 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Crystal Palace central defender Maxence Lacroix has the most starts (58) and minutes (5,009) of the France players, but the 26-year-old is only expected to be a squad pick for Les Bleus. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/articles\/cx2k50v9zyxo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">Bayern Munich forward Michael Olise<\/a> (65), coincidentally a former Palace player, has made the most appearances but by coming off the bench 12 times he is second on minutes played (4,942).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Olise is one of 11 France players who featured at the Club World Cup. Portugal also had 11 with only Germany, on 12, having more in action in the United States last summer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In the squad top 10 we find Portugal in second, with 1,299 matches and 96,405 minutes. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Roberto Martinez&#8217;s squad would have been closer to the top had Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot seen more cup action with Manchester United. The Red Devils failed to quality for Europe and played only one match in both the FA Cup and the EFL Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Paris St-Germain midfielder Vitinha played the most games (66) in reaching the final of the Club World Cup and winning the Champions League. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cristiano Ronaldo started all 44 matches he played for Al Nassr and Portugal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England are third, with Thomas Tuchel&#8217;s men having played more games (1,304) than Portugal but made fewer starts (1,051 to 1,092).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The workload on Harry Kane could be a concern with the captain &#8211; who is 33 next month &#8211; playing 63 games for Bayern Munich.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Morgan Rogers is the most played, featuring 64 times across 5,037 minutes for Aston Villa and England.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England have the most players (seven) to make 50 or more starts, followed by Belgium, Germany and Portugal (six).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For Germany, Bayern centre-back Jonathan Tah has played the most minutes (4,923) of Julian Nagelsmann&#8217;s squad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>France must battle with both heat and fatigue if they are to win the World Cup for a third time.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}