You can literally start counting down the hours now to Euro 2020, the football event of the summer. Seven of the top ten national teams in the FIFA rankings will partake in the European Championship, including France, the reigning World Cup champions from 2018.
That’s where we start, as we look at the top individual players who will be participating in the event. France’s midfield maestro, Chelsea FC star man N’Golo Kante, is one of the best players in Europe right now.
According to NBC Sports, the Premier League broadcasting rights holder in the United States, Kante is the Euro’s top overall player. He leads their list, 20 names long, which includes three former Blues: #7 Romelu Lukaku (Belgium/Inter Milan), #13 Eden Hazard (Belgium/Real Madrid) and #17 Thibaut Courtois (also Belgium and Real Mardrid). Indeed Euro 2020 is blue, as 20% of their list is Chelsea related.
It certainly makes a lot of sense given all the major trophies the southwest London club has won in recent years, including the Champions League, just a couple weeks ago. This tournament perfectly conveys just how much of a tremendous investment Owner and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has made in his franchise, and what an elite job Club Director Marina Granovskaia has done in the building it up. And the current European champions, on the club side, have a lot of current players scattered about all the top contenders in the field.
France, as reigning World Champions, are the favorite in the event, and Kante has two club teammates with him on Les Bleus: defender Kurt Zouma and striker Olivier Giroud. England, who finished in the final four at the last World Cup, are considered a strong contender to claim the Euro title, and their roster includes three Chelsea men. One of the trio, Mason Mount, joins Kante in the Blues midfield, and like the Frenchman, was snubbed in some of the postseason awards this term.
Both Mount and Kante performed at a level that made them PFA Player of the Year candidates, but neither claimed the plaudit. Actually, neither one even landed in the PFA Team of the Year, and that is unjust to say the least. When you peruse the rosters of numerous Euro contenders, Germany, Italy, Spain and more, there are Blues everywhere. It all goes to show you what an excellent program, you could say, they have at Stamford Bridge.
In other words, if you’ve been following the London giants for a long time, you’ll see familiar faces in pretty much any game you watch. It all starts Friday when Italy takes on Turkey, and then Saturday brings a triad of matches- Switzerland vs Wales, Finland vs. Denmark and Russia vs. Belgium.
England’s opener is Sunday vs. Croatia. Game on!
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.