West Ham United have six players currently at the club heading to the 2022 World Cup in the coming days.
Including Croatian forward Nikola Vlasic, who is currently on loan in Serie A side Torino, six Hammers will be at the tournament. Captain Declan Rice (England), centre-back Nayef Aguerd (Morocco), midfielder Lucas Paqueta (Brazil), defender Thilo Kehrer (Germany) and goalkeeper Alphonse Areola (France) will all be in Qatar.
As well as the six current West Ham players, five ex-Hammers will be in action at the competition.
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Two of them will be in Group A. Ecuador, who take on hosts Qatar in the tournament’s opening match, will be captained by striker Enner Valencia. The now Fenerbahce man, who scored ten goals in 68 games for West Ham between 2014 and 2017, will come up against former West Ham midfielder Cheikhou Kouyate. Kouyate, now at Nottingham Forest, will be in Senegal’s squad.
Switzerland are in Group G with West Ham midfielder Paqueta and Brazil. In the Swiss squad is ex-Irons midfielder Edimilson Fernandes, who scored once in 48 appearances for the club between 2016 and 2019 before joining German side Koln.
Group H is where the other two ex-Hammers will be competing. Portugal midfielder Joao Mario, now at Benfica, spent the second half of the 2017/18 season on loan at West Ham from Inter Milan, scoring twice in 14 appearances.
Coming up against Mario is former West Ham forward Andre Ayew, who will be captaining Ghana in the competition. Group H’s other sides are Uruguay and South Korea.
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