A study was carried out on the impact of the CAN on European clubs. The identity of the French club most penalized could be surprising.
CAN 2023 started last week in Ivory Coast. This competition, scheduled in the middle of the season, is not without impact for European clubs and in particular French teams. Many of them are penalized by multiple defections. With seven absent, Gattuso’s OM are the ones most affected.
The CAN, a plague for French clubs
Marseille is therefore suffering this year, but if we take into account the last 8 editions of the African Cup it is not the French club which has been the most impacted by the queen event of the black continent. It’s FC Metz.
According to a statistical study carried out by bettors.ng, Messins have sent no less than 29 players to the CAN since 2010. Lamine Camara, the top scorer of the current edition, is one of them. The Lorraines are followed by Stade Rennais (23 players) and OM and Nice (23 each). The Top 5 is completed by AS Saint-Etienne (21). Note that PSG, for its part, only had to part with 11 players during this period.
If we take foreign clubs into account, Metz even comes in 4e position and he is the first outside Africa. TP Mazembe is the one with the most selections (43), ahead of the two Egyptian leaders Al Ahly (37) and Zamalek (31). But, for these teams, there were no harmful consequences given that their respective championships were at a standstill during the African Cup.
