Ranking National Teams by Club Strength

The table below presents the FWC 2026 Club Strength Index (CSI), a ranking of the national teams participating in the tournament based on the strength of the clubs represented by the players called up to their squads.

The CSI measures the club-level environment from which each national team is drawn. It does not rank teams by current tournament results, historical prestige or international reputation. Instead, it asks a different question: how strong are the clubs in which the selected players normally compete?

The first column shows the CSI rating value. The reference benchmark is 100 points. A value above 100 indicates that the squad is, on average, built around players from a very strong club environment. A value below 100 points to a more moderate or weaker average club-strength profile.

The next column shows each country’s position in the FWC Ranking, based on tournament-performance criteria: stage, points, goal difference, goals scored, goals conceded and group-stage position. The data on this page is updated after the completion of each round/phase (the data on the source page is updated in real time).

The NFRI column shows each country’s position in the National Football Reputation Index, which reflects the broader global football reputation of national football systems.

The final column shows the number of players in the squad who play for clubs ranked outside the KA Top 1000 clubs.

FWC 2026 Club Base Strength Index (CSI)

			RATING	FWC RANK	NFRI	Out of 1000
1	France	FRA	148,081	1	3	0
2	Spain	ESP	144,785	8	1	0
3	England	ENG	140,996	19	5	0
4	Germany	GER	135,000	17	7	0
5	Portugal	POR	133,908	20	6	0
6	Argentina	ARG	123,192	3	2	0
7	Netherlands	NED	118,346	7	8	0
8	Brazil	BRA	116,772	10	4	0
9	Belgium	BEL	116,177	31	18	0
10	Uruguay	URU	112,721	24	14	0
11	Turkey	TUR	106,273	44	21	0
12	Senegal	SEN	105,112	36	16	0
13	Morocco	MAR	104,038	12	22	0
14	Norway	NOR	100,262	4	20	0
15	Croatia	CRO	99,633	28	10	0
16	Saudi Arabia	KSA	98,168	39	64	1
17	Ecuador	ECU	94,544	34	13	0
18	Austria	AUT	92,900	23	28	0
19	United States	USA	91,270	2	24	0
20	Ivory Coast	CIV	91,213	15	46	0
21	Sweden	SWE	90,834	26	45	0
22	Switzerland	SUI	90,699	9	15	0
23	Colombia	COL	88,951	18	9	0
24	Egypt	EGY	87,341	11	47	1
25	Japan	JPN	84,150	21	12	0
26	Czech Republic	CZE	83,425	32	40	0
27	Scotland	SCO	81,993	27	36	0
28	Algeria	ALG	79,935	29	34	1
29	Canada	CAN	79,165	6	29	1
30	Mexico	MEX	77,957	5	11	0
31	South Korea	KOR	77,323	14	26	0
32	Ghana	GHA	75,787	22	76	1
33	Paraguay	PAR	74,012	16	25	0
34	South Africa	RSA	67,642	38	73	2
35	Bosnia and Herzegovina	BIH	66,450	35	70	0
36	DR Congo	COD	63,110	33	59	1
37	Tunisia	TUN	62,929	48	55	2
38	Qatar	QAT	59,315	40	85	1
39	Australia	AUS	58,382	13	23	1
40	Uzbekistan	UZB	54,682	47	41	5
41	Iran	IRN	54,489	25	30	3
42	Cape Verde	CPV	50,884	30	72	7
43	New Zealand	NZL	50,403	37	62	3
44	Haiti	HAI	49,487	45	78	9
45	Jordan	JOR	46,045	43	52	5
46	Panama	PAN	44,133	42	39	7
47	Curaçao	CUW	41,027	41	89	8
48	Iraq	IRQ	36,377	46	65	8

At the top of the CSI are teams such as France, Spain, England, Germany and Portugal. Their squads are strongly connected with elite-level club football and contain players from clubs with very high KA ratings. These teams combine individual quality, squad depth and a strong club-football background.

However, the CSI also shows that club-level strength does not automatically translate into national-team performance. A strong squad on paper may underperform, while a team with a more modest club profile may achieve better tournament results.

The clearest negative example is Turkey. Turkey has a strong club profile, with a CSI rating above the 100-point benchmark, but this has not been reflected in its tournament performance so far. Despite ranking relatively high in club-strength terms, Turkey is near the bottom of the FWC Ranking, with 0 points and 0 goals scored (after the 2nd round).

On the other side, Mexico shows the opposite pattern. The team won its group despite having more moderate CSI profiles (3 wins, zero goal againts).

Mexico’s squad is built mainly around players from Mexican clubs and mid-level European clubs, without the same elite-club concentration visible in the strongest European national teams.

This contrast is precisely what makes the CSI useful. It does not replace the tournament table and it does not mechanically predict match results. Instead, it provides a complementary analytical layer. It helps identify which national teams are overperforming or underperforming relative to the club strength of their squads.

In this sense, the CSI gives a different perspective on FWC 2026. It shows not only who is winning, but also which national teams are supported by the strongest club-football base — and where the gap between club strength and national-team performance is the widest.

It should also be noted that the CSI measures the club affiliation of each selected player, not the player’s actual role within that club.

In other words, the index identifies the strength of the clubs from which the squad players are drawn, but it does not directly measure whether a player is a regular starter, a rotation player, a reserve, or a player with limited match involvement. For this reason, the CSI may slightly overstate the practical squad strength of some national teams.

A possible example is Saudi Arabia. Some Saudi players are registered with highly rated clubs, which may improve the team’s CSI profile. However, if those players have only limited playing time or a secondary role within those clubs, the rating may not fully reflect their actual competitive impact at national-team level.

This does not invalidate the CSI, but it is an important interpretative limitation. The index should therefore be read as a measure of club-strength exposure, rather than a complete assessment of individual player status, playing time or squad role.