The Average Age Of All World Cup Squads
June 2nd, 2010 | by: chris

CapelloAcMichaelRegan3Perusing the Italian squad earlier, I noticed something odd: people in their early 20’s. In fact there were 7 – seven! – players 25 or under in Marcello Lippi’s squad, which made me think perhaps this Italy squad was, dare I say, young (comparison and all that). Therefore I hacked out the average age of the Azzurri and came up with 28.2, which meant nothing aside from I could convince myself this team still wasn’t that old (having no comparison this time) for the time being.

31 teams and a lot of yelling at Pim Verbeek later, we have the average age of every team at the World Cup and Italy isn’t the oldest, but a team coached by an Italian is…

Just cannot win.

Group A

France: 27.4
Mexico: 27.1
South Africa: 26.9
Uruguay: 26.7

Group B

Argentina: 27.1
Greece: 27.7
Nigeria: 27.7
South Korea: 27.1

Group C

Algeria: 27.2
England: 28.7
Slovenia: 26.7
USA: 26.9

Group D

Australia: Australia's average is 28.4 (assuming Wikipedia is correct)
Germany: 25.0
Ghana: 24.1
Serbia: 26.0

Group E

Cameroon: 25.2
Denmark: 27.7
Japan: 27.8
Netherlands: 27.7

Group F

Italy: 28.2
New Zealand: 27.3
Paraguay:28.1
Slovakia: 26.1

Group G

Brazil: 28.6
Ivory Coast: 26.7
North Korea: 24.8
Portugal: 27.7

Group H

Chile: 25.9
Honduras: 28.1
Spain: 25.9
Switzerland: 26.7

* – At this point, several hours after the FIFA deadline, Pim Verbeek hasn’t omitted anyone and is trying to sneak one past by bringing through a suspiciously large squad of 23. Either that or he doesn’t care about the people calculating meaningless statistics.

And now the important part: all 32, from youngest (best) to oldest (less best).

Ghana – 24.1
North Korea – 24.8
Germany – 25.0
Cameroon – 25.2
Spain – 25.9
Chile – 25.9
Serbia – 26.0
Slovakia – 26.1
Switzerland – 26.7
Ivory Coast – 26.7
Uruguay – 26.7
Slovenia – 26.7
South Africa – 26.9
USA – 26.9
Mexico – 27.1
Argentina – 27.1
South Korea – 27.1
Algeria – 27.2
New Zealand – 27.3
France – 27.4
Greece – 27.7
Nigeria – 27.7
Denmark – 27.7
Netherlands – 27.7
Portugal – 27.7
Japan – 27.8
Honduras – 28.1
Paraguay – 28.1
Italy – 28.2
Australia's average is 28.4 (assuming Wikipedia is correct)
Brazil – 28.6
England – 28.7


http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2010/the-average-age-of-all-world-cup-squads.html

mate surely italys average age is 48 not 28 misspelling there

Would be interesting to see how this had changed historically. It's hard to know what it means in isolation like this. Have the champions traditionally had older or younger squads?

i thought i heard chile had the youngest squad :-k

then again youngest squad and average age are two different things

Edited by gooner4life_8: 2/6/2010 10:06:20 PM

I think if you took one or two older players out of some squads (e.g. Kanu 33 for Nigeria) you might find the average drops quickly. Some of those older players would be stars who the coach cannot drop without inciting riots at home, but how much time will they get on the pitch? Especially at altitude.