The name is absent

number of i’s national team appearances since WC06

number of national team matches of i’s nation since WC06

National team matches include friendly matches as well as qualification matches for
the Euro 2008 or other international tournaments. In the sample containing all players
active both in 06/07 and 07/08 (and after Nov. 07), natteamit = 0 at all dates t for 109
out of the 165 players of Euro 2008 nationalities, and for 20 of the 81 players of other
nationalities. Figure 4 depicts the distribution of natteam_it for players of Euro 2008
nationalities in the 07/08 season, conditional on natteam_it > 0. The Figure shows much
variation in natteamit for those players with some national team exposure since World
Cup 2006.²⁹

Table 9 in Appendix 2 shows that the values of natteam at the time of final nomination
decisions (at the end of the 07/08 season) are closely related to the actual nominations
for the Euro 2008 German national team. For all other Euro 2008 nationalities, the
player(s) in our sample with the highest end of season values of natteam were nominated,
i.e., nomination decisions were perfectly in line with the rankings of final natteam values.

The nomination contest theory predicts a non-monotonic effect of natteamit on the
effort of players from Euro 2008 nations during the nomination contest period. Players
who believe they will be nominated with an intermediate probability should exert high
effort to convince the national coach of their skill. Players with natteam_it close to 0
or 1, on the other hand, expecting that small performance changes will not affect the
national coach’s decision, should not alter their effort much or at all. To capture the
uncertainty of a player’s nomination we construct the variable natteam_it (1 - natteam_it);
the nomination contest theory predicts strong effects for high natteam_it (1 - natteam_it),
and no effect for natteamit (1 - natteamit) = 0.

The ‘training theory’ instead predicts higher output the higher natteam. Ceteris
paribus, a player who thinks he will be nominated with a higher probability has more to
gain from increasing his training intensity to be in good shape for the Cup. Moreover,
players with high natteam may receive more (or different) training at the national team
level. The ‘injury theory’, on the other hand, predicts lower club output the higher
natteam_it , because players who expect to be on the national team have a higher incentive
to avoid injuries in the months before the Cup, which could adversely affect their output.

²⁹ The total number of national team matches was similar for the treatment and the control group, and
the analogue to Figure 4 for players in the control looks similar.

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