A Bolton Wanderers link to every nation at Qatar World Cup 2022

Football outside the top two divisions will be carrying on regardless, with the Premier League and Championship starting up again on Boxing Day.

That means for 29 days, we will have a double helping of club and national football to consume. And while many fans are finding it difficult to get excited about a big tournament being played in the dead of winter, matches in the middle of the day, in a host country with questionable suitability, morals and ethics, we decided to ‘Wanderers’ it up a little.

For each of the 32 teams involved in the tournament, we have picked out a Bolton Wanderers link. And please remember, this is just for fun.

GROUP A.

QATAR – Al-Rayyan, the eight-time champions of the Qatari league, was the last stop for a certain Fernando Hierro before he came to Bolton Wanderers in 2004.

ECUADOR – Striker Djorkaeff Reasco is named after the Wanderers legend Youri Djorkaeff and has a fairly good chance of starting the opening game of the tournament.

SENEGAL – If you want an example of ‘what could have been’ consider that Wanderers once reportedly chose to sign Matt Mills instead of Kalidou Koulibaly.

Then playing for Metz in France, the big defender was available for around £1million. Sigh.

NETHERLANDS – One of the men credited with developing Dutch football in the early days, Bob Glendinning, played for Bolton Wanderers between 1913 and 1915, and even ran the Ainsworth Arms as a landlord. He is buried at St Peter’s Church in Halliwell, with a memorial from the KNVB.

GROUP B.

ENGLAND – There is an alternative universe where Gareth Southgate’s path to managing England could also have included Bolton Wanderers.

Back in May 2016, the club was searching for a successor to Neil Lennon after relegation to League One. New co-owner Ken Anderson – yes him – sounded out some of his contacts in football, including Roy Keane and Southgate, who was then in charge of England’s Under-21s. Suffice it to say they both issued a polite decline.

Wanderers went with the next logical choice, Phil Parkinson.

IRAN – The strongest link we can find is that Adranik Teymourian, the hard-working midfielder who featured for Bolton between 2006 and 2008, is Iran’s joint-top appearance makers at the World Cup finals with six games.

USA – Why, there are two bona fide former Wanderers players in the American squad, so we are claiming them as our own. Tim Ream played for four seasons with Bolton, making 125 appearances and twice winning the club’s player of the year award. Now with Fulham, we’re delighted to see the 35-year-old get his chance at a major tournament.

And don’t forget Antonee Robinson, who played 30 times in the 2017/18 Championship season whilst on loan from Everton. We forget where he went immediately after that... But he’s now pulling up trees at Fulham in the Premier League.

WALES – Forget the fact half of Wanderers’ squad could have been drafted in to the Wales squad if Rob Page had so wished, we would rather dwell on Gareth Bale, and the week he destroyed Inter Milan in the Champions League but then got marked out of the game by Gretar Steinsson at the Reebok the following Sunday.

GROUP C.

ARGENTINA – Shout out to the Latam BWFC Supporters Club, who will be busy this month supporting club and country at the same time.

Sadly, Sergio Aguero has hung up his boots… But we still have time to air that statistic one more time. Which is the only Premier League opposition he failed to score against? That’s right, Bolton Wanderers.

SAUDI ARABIA – Al-Itihad came to England on a mini-tour in 2019 and beat a scratch Wanderers team 3-2 at Lostock. At least one player who played that day is in the World Cup squad, Abdulrahman Al-Aboud. A few days after their win at Bolton, the Saudis were curiously beaten 2-0 at Atherton Colls.

MEXICO – The Tricolour’s second all-time top scorer, Jared Borgetti, had a brief but eventful spell in English football with Wanderers between 2005 and 2006. The former striker will be at the tournament, but up in the press box doing commentary for ESPN.

POLAND – Keeper Wojciech Szczesny, now with Juventus, came on trial to Bolton Wanderers under the watch of legendary coach, Fred Barber, in 2007. According to Barber, the teenager was hard-working, but a deal proved difficult as Wanderers already had Jussi Jaaskelainen, Ali Al-Habsi and, erm, Kevin Poole.

GROUP D.

FRANCE – Only one place to start here. In a recent interview, France and Bayern Munich striker Kingsley Coman revealed he had been a Bolton Wanderers fan when he was a kid. Once in, never out – our Kingsley is now as Bolton as a Carrs Pastie barmcake.

AUSTRALIA – It is a shame that Jack Iredale didn’t make the cut – but Wanderers fans can at least cheer on former youth teamer, and perennial entrant into the ‘ones that got away’ club, Aaron Mooy.

Billed as ‘Zidane-like’ by former youth coach Peter Farrell, the young midfielder was released in 2010, making his way back up the rungs with St Mirren, Huddersfield Town, Brighton and Celtic.

DENMARK – Wanderers have loads of Danish links from years gone by – the Great Danes of Per Frandsen, Michael Johansen, Claus Jensen and Bo Hansen, for example.

Linking the current squad is a bit trickier. But Brentford midfielder Christian Norgaard has come up against Bolton before, in a friendly for Thomas Frank’s Brondby in 2014. Research.

TUNISIA – The one and only Radhi Jaidi joined an exclusive club of Bolton Wanderers players to have scored at a World Cup finals when he netted against Saudi Arabia in 2006.

GROUP E.

SPAIN – Marcos Alonso and Rodrigo Moreno’s exclusion has really stymied us here. They were bankers.

At the last World Cup, Fernando Hierro found himself hurriedly appointed as manager on the eve of the tournament, but that seems a long shot this time around.

Our Hail Mary pass is experienced midfielder Koke, who has spent the whole of his footballing career with Atletico Madrid, man and boy. He’d have been there that night in the UEFA Cup… Probably.

COSTA RICA – A 37-year-old Bryan Ruiz might bring back bad Premier League memories for Bolton fans. He scored a lovely chip against the Whites for Fulham in 2011. Later that season he broke his foot playing at the Reebok.

GERMANY – We could hark on about Fredi Bobic, or the fact Thomas Muller ducked out of playing Wanderers in 2007 by virtue of only being in Bayern Munich’s youth team at the time – but in Marco Ter-Stegen we have a genuine former team-mate on Bolton attacker Elias Kachunga. The pair played together at Borussia Monchengladbach.

JAPAN – Hidetoshi Nakata, one of Wanderers’ most enigmatic foreign imports, led Japan to their first-ever World Cup finals in 1998. Regarded as one of the GOAT’s of Japanese football, he ended his career to move into the fashion industry in 2006, allegedly when he realised it couldn’t get any better than Bolton.

GROUP F.

BELGIUM – In 2011, Wanderers were strongly linked with a move for the Standard Liege winger Axel Witsel. Unfortunately, the Belgian was priced at £12million, which was twice what Gary Megson was willing to pay. We could cheer him on regardless!

CANADA – There is actually a football club called Bolton Wanderers IN Canada (well, soccer club). Based in Ontario, the Whites even paid it a visit back in 2010 during a pre-season trip to North America. Wanderers also lifted some silverware during the trip, beating FC Toronto on penalties at the BMO Field.

MOROCCO – We were worried about this one – but it turns out that Roman Saiss, the Besiktas midfielder, once scored for Wolves in a 5-1 victory against Bolton Wanderers in November 2017. Sorry to bring it back up.

CROATIA – Did Sam Allardyce once cast his eye over Luka Modric? We don’t know. But Bolton certainly got to know the little fella well, coming up against him on no fewer than nine occasions. He scored just once, a belter for Spurs in 2012.

GROUP G.

BRAZIL – Andre Moritz, Julio Cesar, Wellington Silva, Emerson Thome… Mario Jardel, Wanderers have had a few Samba stars down the years, of varying shapes and sizes.

There have been a couple of near misses, too. Rivaldo, Denilson, even Julio Baptista. What might have been, eh?

SERBIA – Alexsandr Mitrovic has scored plenty of goals in a Fulham shirt – but one defence he couldn’t puncture was that of Bolton Wanderers. His one appearance against the Whites lasted 39 minutes and saw him draw a blank. Adam Le Fondre scored for Bolton in a 1-1 draw in October 2018.

SWITZERLAND – Where is Blerim Dzemaili? This used to be easier. National captain Granit Xhaka and veteran keeper Yann Sommer are ex-team-mates of Elias Kachunga at Borussia Monchengladbach but if we want a slightly more left-field link to the nation of chocolate, clocks and mountains, why not the reported Swiss investors who have been courted by Football Ventures at the UniBol?

CAMEROON – Alas, David N’Gog never got that call-up for the Indomitable Lions, so this one is a deep cut. One of Cameroon’s most experienced players, Eric Choupo-Moting, had a spell on the books of Mainz where, very briefly, he crossed paths with ex-Wanderer Ivan Klasnic, who was coming to the end of his playing career.

GROUP H.

PORTUGAL – After nearly giving ourselves an aneurysm over the Cameroon link, this one is a doddle. Cristiano Ronaldo – who seems to have talked himself into a bit of trouble lately – made his debut in English football for Manchester United against? Bolton Wanderers. Sorry Nicky Hunt!

GHANA – Then West Ham winger Andre Ayew created a goal for Arthur Masuaku when Wanderers made their one-and-only trip to the London Stadium in a League Cup game in September 2017. The game is, of course, more notable for being the Bolton debut of Jeff King.

URUGUAY – National legend Luis Suarez only faced Wanderers once, playing for Liverpool in 2011, and didn’t get on the scoresheet. But he did dedicate a future goal to Fabrice Muamba when he was battling for his life in hospital the next year, so we thank him for that.

SOUTH KOREA – Ex-Bolton favourite Chung-Yong Lee is not in the Korea squad, sadly, but was just voted MVP at his club, Ulsan Hyundai. Three of his team-mates – Jo Hyeon-woo, Kim Young-gwon and Kim Tae-hwan – have made the cut.