Johannesburg – Scores of parents across the globe dream of their sons reaching the highest level of football and one day playing at a World Cup.
And ahead of the World Cup in Qatar, set to be held from November 20 to December 18 in the Middle East, Kelbet analysed over 7 000 squad members since the tournament’s inception in 1930, to find out what are the most common names and birth months among the players.
It discovered that Carlos is the most common name, with 72 players with this name having participated in World Cups over the decades.
The research found that other names that ranked on the list include Jose, Luis, Mario and John, which all ranked in the top five. Meanwhile, David, Peter, Roberto, Antonio and Jan concluded the top 10.
In addition, the best month to be born as a World Cup winner was September, with 21 of the members of the winning teams having a birthday during this month.
Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima was one of the football legends born during September, having featured in four tournaments and Brazil won two of them with him in the squad.
But if you missed out on September, your second-best bet would be November, when 17 winners were born, including Spain’s Xavi Alonso, Germany’s Gerd Muller, France’s Laurent Blanc, and Italy’s Alessandro del Piero and Fabio Grosso, who all managed to lift the trophy at least once for their country.
The months with the least probability of births of winners are June and August, with only nine winners born in those months.
Meanwhile, the research found that January is the most common birth month of the squad players: 761 players were born in the first month of the year.
To compile the research, Kelbet analysed Wikipedia data to obtain the date of birth and name of the World Cup squad members since 1930.