The FIFA 2022 World Cup is just around the corner. From Jack Grealish to Cristiano Ronaldo, the world-uniting tournament will see some of the most attractive players perform for their country. But which country is the most attractive?
By analysing the golden ratio of all the players at the World Cup between 2002 and 2022, FindMyCasino has trawled through the numbers to determine, once and for all, which country has the fittest footballers by using the golden ratio.
The ‘golden ratio’ is a mathematical ratio of 1.618, which is believed to be the formula that makes things the most aesthetically pleasing. According to science, those who show facial structure and features closer to the golden ratio are deemed more attractive.
And the results are in: here’s the world’s most attractive football team competing in the World Cup, as well as the best-looking player from each team.
Who Is the Most Attractive Football Team in 2022?
With a rich history, beautiful architecture and now the best-looking footballers–Serbia are top of the league when it comes to being the most attractive team in the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
At an average team golden ratio score of 76.86%, the Serbians are bound to make some heads turn in Qatar.
Serbia saw a narrow lead above Brazil, who ranked the second most beautiful team, with a golden ratio score of 76.51%. South Korea followed in third, just narrowly behind Brazil with an average score of 76.19%.
Poland and Argentina just miss out on the podium spots with 75.95% and 75.84% golden ratio team averages.
England are way down in ninth place (lower than they aim to place in the World Cup) with a 73.32% golden ratio average—this is 0.5% lower than their score in 2002 and 3.54% lower than the Serbian team which took the top spot.
Who Is the Most Attractive Football Team Between 2002 and 2022?
Croatia takes the trophy when it comes to the most attractive players overall, from data collected between 2002 and 2022. In total, the Croatian team ranked at 75.82% golden ratio average; which makes the team, on average, more attractive than Iran, who scored second at 75.66%, and Poland, who scored third at 75.26%.
The national teams of South Korea and Uruguay place fourth and fifth with respective golden ratio scores of 74.88% and 74.79% from the squads who played at World Cups between 2002 and 2022.
Which Football Teams Saw the Biggest Change?
But which team has seen the biggest changes in golden ratio ratings over the last two decades? Switzerland showed the biggest decline in attractiveness score, with a 15.07% decline from 77.43% in 2002 to 65.77% in 2022.
On the other hand, Brazil has shown the biggest glow-up out of all FIFA World Cup teams–showing a 5.99% increase in average golden ratio score. In 2002, the beautiful Brazilians scored a respectable 72.18% golden ratio average; in 2022 Brazil ranked at 76.51% golden ratio average.
Which Football Team Showed the Least Change?
According to the data, Belgium seems to be the most consistent of all FIFA World Cup teams. The team showed a slight decline–down 0.40%–between the two decades, meaning they’ve changed the least out of all the teams analysed. In 2002, the team scored 72.16% golden ratio average, whereas, in 2022, they scored 71.88%.
Who Is the Most Attractive Footballer in 2022?
But who is the most attractive footballer of them all? USA’s Paul Arriola takes the crown when it comes to the best-looking player in the FIFA 2022 World Cup, having an average of 90.64% of the golden ratio average!
The 27-year-old professional footballer, who plays winger for the Major League Soccer club FC Dallas and, of course, the USA national team.
He’s closely followed by Vahid Amiri of the Iranian team. Just 0.33% separate the two as the Iranian winger scored a respectable golden ratio average of 90.31%.
Portugal’s Diogo Costa. Credit: Maciej Rogowski Photo/Shutterstock
In line for a bronze medal is Diogo Costa from Portugal. When not representing his country, he plays for Primeira Liga club Porto and serves some serious looks—he scores a golden ratio average of 89.86%!
Who Is the Most Attractive Player From Each Team?
While Arriola may take first place overall, there are 831 footballers in total across 48 teams in the FIFA 2022 World Cup, so which is the most attractive player of each team? Here are the results:
Although Belgium may be the team who has shown the least change in attractiveness over the last two decades, don’t let that fool you. Leandro Trossard takes the top place on the team, with a golden ratio score of 88.68%– shortly followed by their second most attractive player, Dries Metertens at 86.07%.
Just above this, Brazil’s (and Manchester United’s) Antony secured a golden ratio score of 88.87%!
Although Ghana is the lowest ranking team in overall golden ratio score, Joseph Aidoo – who plays centre back for the Spanish club, Celta Vigo, as well as his national team – ranks a respectable 85.04% golden ratio score.
This makes him the most attractive footballer on the Ghanaian team, ranking above the most attractive English player, Aaron Ramsdale, who scored a golden ratio of just 83.40%.
The most attractive player in the Qatar team – the nation hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup – is Mohammed Waad, who scored a respectable 86.85% on the golden ratio. This narrowly beats Andrés Guardado, the most attractive footballer for Mexico’s team, who scored 86.60%.
Serbia took the trophy when it came to the most attractive football team overall, but when it comes to individual players Srdjan Babic is in the lead – score 88.32% on the golden ratio. However, this is far below the most attractive player overall, Paul Arriola from the USA.
Last, but certainly not least, is Paul Arriola from the United States. His score of 90.64% on the golden ratio not only makes him the most attractive player on his team but the most attractive player in the whole tournament – and arguably the world. We’re sure you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled for Arriola on the pitch.
Methodology:
FindMyCasino conducted this research to identify the most attractive football teams in the world cup. The research draws from anthropometric facial analysis, using a computer vision algorithm to compute the golden ratio proximity of over 8,000 players.
Images of players present in national team squads between 2002 until 2022 were first scraped from Transfermarkt. The inherent face variability from a multitude of confounding factors including varying expressions, illuminations and poses increase entropy within our model. The relative impact of such factors is controlled and mitigated through strict photo filtering criteria ensuring a standardised sample of images.
A facial landmarking algorithm was then deployed to identify prominent facial features on each player’s image. These features serve as anchor points from which to calculate the facial geometric ratio. The anthropometric ratios were subsequently used to approximate the geometric golden ratio of each image.
An aggregation of the dataset was then performed to compute for each team, the average golden ratio percentage in 2002, 2022 and the average between 2002-2022. The percentage change between 2002 and 2022 were also calculated and ranked in descending order.
