How the four strongest leagues perform at Euro 2012
England, Italy, Germany or Spain? As the big teams do battle in the knockout phase of Euro 2012, Channel 4 News takes a look at the dominance of the top four nations’ leagues.
The top four European club leagues are in England (Premier League), Italy (Serie A), Spain (La Liga) and Germany (Bundesliga). These are the leagues where the big money is spent. But at international level, Euro 2012, how do they compare?
Our graphic shows you that England is the only team to reach the quarter-finals of Euro 2012 with 100 per cent of its squad currently based at clubs on home turf.
The Italians feature 21 players from clubs in the big four nations’ leagues – mostly from Italian clubs, with one star (Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli) in the English Premier League.
Like England, the Spanish and German squads are pure top flight, with the Germans featuring players from all four dominant leagues.
There are big differences when you bring in the less-favoured teams and those who failed to get out of the group stages. Greece, the surprise quarter-finalists, featured just four stars from the big leagues. And cohosts Ukraine brought just one such player to the tournament – Bayern Munich’s Anatoliy Tymoshchuk.