This summer, Arsenal had 10 players participating in the World Cup, if you include new signing Lucas Torreira, so let’s take a look at how they all got on.
Many of Arsenal’s stars missed out on the tournament for one reason or another, particularly the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Aaron Ramsey and Henrikh Mkhitaryan whose countries simply didn’t qualify.
Then there were those who were injured, notably Laurent Koscielny, and those who didn’t get the call up despite regular international participation in the past, like Shkodran Mustafi and Alexandre Lacazette.
Of the lucky few that did make the tournament though, how did it all go?
1Joel Campbell (Costa Rica) 7
Costa Rica really didn’t have a good tournament at all, only picking up one point in the group stage. However, individually Campbell did pretty well. Returning from injury, he only made one start, and played 23 minutes of another match, but he still provided an assist for one goal and won a penalty for another.
He was undoubtedly Costa Rica’s man of the match against Switzerland, and it makes you wonder if they might’ve done better if he’d started the other matches too. Unfortunately he didn’t, or his rating might’ve been higher here.
Mohamed Elneny (Egypt) 5
Elneny’s performances were more representative of his country’s overall showing at the tournament. They couldn’t get going in Russia, and Elneny started all three of Egypt’s defeats to Uruguay, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Funnily enough, his best performance was probably against the best of the three teams, Uruguay. After that he couldn’t make anything happen against the lower-ranked countries.
Stephan Lichtsteiner (Switzerland) 7.5
Signing for Arsenal just before the tournament, Lichtsteiner impressed fans with his committed performances against tough opposition. He did particularly well to help keep Brazil to just one goal despite facing the likes of Neymar.
In the end, Switzerland got knocked out in the only match Lichtsteiner didnt play, as he picked up a yellow card suspension before the game against Sweden.
Nacho Monreal (Spain) N/A
Monreal didn’t play a single minute for Spain, so at least he’ll come back to Arsenal well-rested.