Thursday 9 June 2016 09:21, UK
England defender Chris Smalling heads into Euro 2016 with more minutes on the clock than any other player but hosts France could be the most tired team heading into the tournament.
The Manchester United defender has started 61 games for club and country between July 1, 2015 and May 31, 2016 inclusive and racked up 5,472 minutes, coming out on top of the Press Association Sport Burnout Study of minutes played by the 552 players at the tournament.
Player burnout is often cited as a key reason for England's failure to make significant progress at major tournaments, but Roy Hodgson's men do not go to France with the most minutes played collectively. The hosts lead the way on 86,115 minutes with England fourth on 81,319 minutes. England are also behind Spain (83,641) and Portugal (82,655).
The top four players with most minutes played are all based in England, with Liverpool's Belgian goalkeeper Simon Mignolet second on 5,310 minutes, his Reds team-mate Nathaniel Clyne third on 5,213 and Reading's Wales international Chris Gunter fourth (5,134).
The first player to feature in the top 20 who is not based in England is Italy and Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci on 5,078.
At the other end of the scale, Czech midfielder Tomas Rosicky, who was with Arsenal last season, has registered the fewest minutes for club and country - just 85.
His ex-Gunners team-mate Jack Wilshere, a controversial selection for the England squad after starting just one club match all season, was third overall in terms of fewest minutes played with 253.
The survey used publicly accessible 'minutes played' data available on the soccerway.com website, and the competitions covered included domestic league and cup competitions - excluding the Liechtenstein domestic cup - international club competitions such as the Champions League and Europa League or other continental equivalents and the FIFA Club World Cup, Euro 2016 qualifiers and senior international friendlies.
The data does not include minutes played in club friendlies, close-season tournaments such as the International Champions Cup, the Community Shield and national equivalents or under-age/youth competitions. It also does not include the UEFA Super Cup.
The data does not include stoppage time, and a substitute coming on at the start of the second half is regarded as playing 44 minutes in the study as this is how Soccerway designated them. An injury-time substitute (90+1 or later) did not gain any minutes played for the purposes of this study and players sent off in injury time were awarded the full 90 minutes.
The German Bundesliga is unique among the 'big five' European leagues in being only an 18-team competition, and this is reflected in the data despite Bayern Munich reaching the Champions League semi-finals and winning Germany's domestic cup, the DFB-Pokal.
Northern Ireland were ninth in terms of most minutes played collectively (70,218) but Kyle Lafferty, whose 842 minutes placed him 14th on the list of players with fewest minutes played, was his country's top goalscorer in qualifying with seven and played more minutes at national level (473) than club level (369) during the study period.
Incredibly, two Northern Ireland players registered even fewer minutes than Lafferty - Aaron Hughes (463) and Paddy McNair (792). Reading midfielder Oliver Norwood (5,050 minutes) played more minutes than any other member of Michael O'Neill's squad, putting him seventh overall.
The Republic of Ireland came in 12th out of the 24 competing nations in minutes played with 67,698. Derby defender Richard Keogh made the biggest individual contribution (4,816) to the minutes total of Martin O'Neill's men, while Stoke goalkeeper Shay Given played just 729 minutes.
Gunter was Wales' most active player over the survey period (5,134), in a total of 63,085 minutes which placed them 19th. George Williams (556) had played the fewest minutes of any individual in Chris Coleman's squad up to the end of May.
