Brighton & Hove Albion have a record nine players involved at the World Cup — or at least they do if you include England training goalkeeper Jason Steele.The tournament shines a light on the way their recruitment has evolved in 10 successive seasons as a Premier League club. Without Steele, there are 23 Brighton players past and present competing in the United States, Canada and Mexico.That is 1.6 per cent of the overall total of players (1,248) involved — impressive considering Brighton were in the third tier of English football as recently as 2010 when South Africa hosted the game’s global showpiece.Who is involved this time?There are three players with one country. The Dutch defence will have a strong Brighton theme, with Bart Verbruggen, Jan Paul van Hecke and Mats Wieffer together in the Netherlands squad.Interest for supporters is swelled by Ferdi Kadioglu (Turkey), Maxim De Cuyper (Belgium), Yasin Ayari (Sweden), Pascal Gross (Germany) and Diego Gomez (Paraguay).The number of players involved in the tournament would have climbed into double figures but for a hamstring injury suffered by Kaoru Mitoma during the penultimate home game of the season against Wolverhampton Wanderers in May. He required surgery, ruling the winger out of the Japan squad.Van Hecke and Verbruggen will line up together for the Netherlands (Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images)How does that compare to 2022?Mitoma was among eight players involved in Qatar four years ago. They included Alexis Mac Allister, who became a world champion with Argentina.Coincidentally, there were once again three players with one country. Moises Caicedo, Pervis Estupinan and Jeremy Sarmiento were all in the Ecuador squad. The line-up was completed by Tariq Lamptey (Ghana), Robert Sanchez (Spain) and Leandro Trossard (Belgium).Mac Allister, Caicedo, Estupinan and Trossard have been selected by their countries again, but Sarmiento, Sanchez and Lamptey have not been picked this time around.What about 2018? The tournament in Russia was the first after Brighton became a Premier League club, off the back of finishing 15th in their first season back in the top flight under Chris Hughton. They had only three representatives: Maty Ryan (Australia), Leon Balogun (Nigeria) and Jose Izquierdo (Colombia).The total in fees paid for the trio was just over £20million (average £6.6m), compared to £104m (average £13m) for the 2026 group. The average fee doubling reflects how the spending power and quality of the squad has increased across the past eight years as Brighton have progressed from relegation candidates to qualifying for Europe twice via top-eight finishes.Who are the ex-Brighton players at the 2026 tournament?Mac Allister (Liverpool), Caicedo (Chelsea) , Estupinan (Milan) and Trossard (Arsenal) have already been mentioned. It is a fourth World Cup in succession with Australia for Ryan, the 34-year-old goalkeeper now with Levante in Spain’s La Liga.Alexis Mac Allister won the World Cup as a Brighton player in 2022 (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)Viktor Gyokeres (Sweden and Arsenal) is a Premier League winner following his club’s title success this season. The others are Dan Burn (England and Newcastle), Marc Cucurella (Spain and Chelsea), Deniz Undav (Germany and Stuttgart), Julio Enciso (Paraguay and Strasbourg), Valentin Barco (Argentina and Strasbourg), Simon Adingra (Ivory Coast and Monaco, on loan from Sunderland), Alireza Jahanbakhsh (Iran and FCV Dender), Leo Ostigard (Norway and Genoa), Jurgen Locadia (Curacao and Miami FC).