Issue number 392 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post crunched InStat data to rank 74 leagues worldwide according to the number of chances per game recorded during the current calendar year. The German Bundesliga leads the table with 12.96 chances per match, while the Brazilian Serie B is at the opposite end with on average one third less clear-cut opportunities to score per game (8.41).

The German Bundesliga is the best ranked league of the big-5 also with regard to goals per match: 3.04. However, in this case, five competitions recorded higher values, with a maximum of 3.38 for the Swiss second division. The greatest figure outside of Europe was recorded in Australia (3.04). Conversely, nine non-European leagues are among the eleven that recorded the lowest figures, with the Ukrainian and Bulgarian top divisions as only exceptions.

Rankings are quite different by considering the average number of penalty goals per game. The Russian top division (0.41) heads the table. The top two Japanese leagues and the English second to fourth levels of competition are at the opposite end, with the English Premier League recording the lowest figure among the five major European championships. Whether it is for chances, goals or penalty goals, the study shows the continued existence of different approaches to the game by coaches, players and referees across the world.

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The 391st edition of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses InStat data on passes for 1,226 teams from 71 competitions worldwide. Manchester City leads the table with 754 passes attempted per domestic league game. Only two of the 1’226 clubs surveyed also made more than 700 passes per match: the Japanese second division side Albirex Niigata (713) and Portuguese giants SL Benfica (708).

The number of passes attempted greatly vary between clubs. In the English Premier League, for example, Manchester City makes on average 2,1x more passes per game than the club attempting the least, Bournemouth: 754 vs 352. The lowest figure overall was recorded for the Saudi side Al-Batin FC (199 per game), while the minimum at big-5 league level was measured for Spanish Liga’s Getafe CF (329).

The Post also presents the data on the percentage of successful passes, as well as their distribution between forward (angle span 90°), backward (idem) and lateral. The greatest figure for successful passes was recorded for Paris St-Germain (91.4%), ahead of Manchester City (90.8%) and Real Madrid (90.0%). Istanbul Basaksehir leads the table for backward passes (20.2% of the total), Bodo/Glimt for lateral passes (61.3%) and the Argentineans of Deportivo Riestra for forward ones (64.6%).

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Issue number 390 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks clubs from 60 leagues worldwide (not including B-teams) according to the average age of line-ups fielded during the current or last completed season. Valencia is the youngest team within the five major European championships (on average 23.99 years, 25% of minutes by U21 players), while the record-low figure was observed for the Danish side FC Nordsjælland (22.31 years, 74% of minutes by U21 footballers).

The youngest teams in the other leagues of the big-5 are Stuttgart (24.22) in Germany, Southampton (24.40) in England, Lecce (24.56) in Italy and Stade de Reims (24.83) in France. Spanish giants Barcelona fielded players aged 21 or less for the highest percentage of domestic league minutes (29.5%). Conversely, Atlético Madrid and Tottenham are among the five big-5 league teams that did not yet field U21 footballers.

The extreme figures for line-ups’ age in South America were recorded for the Venezuelans of Zulia FC (23.74 years) and, at the opposite end, the Paraguayans of 12 de Octubre (31.97 years). At league level, the figures stretch from a minimum of 25.23 years of age in the Dutch Eredivisie to a maximum of 29.31 for the Thai top division. At big-5 league level, the values vary from 26.60 years of age in the French Ligue 1 to 27.54 in the Spanish Liga.

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Issue number 389 of the Weekly Post assesses paying fee transfer operations carried out by current big-5 league clubs since July 2012. The study compares players’ values prior to transfer, estimated according to the exclusive CIES Football Observatory’s statistical model, and fees actually paid. This allows us to highlight clubs having most driven inflation up, with Manchester United heading the rankings.

Manchester United’s total investment for the 33 fee paying transfers assessed in the study was €238M greater than the estimated value of players concerned: €1.59 vs €1.36 billion (+18%). Juventus (€233 M, +29%) and Paris St-Germain (€162M, +19%) complete the overspending table’s podium. Only three Premier League teams figure among the 36 clubs that invested less money than expected to conclude the fee-paying deals assessed. This confirms their key role in driving up inflation on the transfer market.

Deals concluded by triggering buy-out or option-to-buy clauses were not included in the sample analysed. Only 86 current big-5 league clubs for which we were able to assess at least ten fee-paying transfers figure in the rankings. More information about the CIES Football Observatory’s scientific method to assess players’ transfer values and fees is available in this open access peer review paper.

Issue number 388 of the Weekly Post presents the top 10 Impact Score rates among footballers who did not yet celebrate their 25th birthday for each of the fifteen technical profiles identified by the CIES Football Observatory’s role-based approach. The greatest values overall (100/100) were recorded for Alessandro Bastoni (blocker playmaker), Éder Militão (pure blocker), Jules Koundé (air blocker filter man) and Vinícius Júnior (infiltrator creator).

The Impact Score is an exclusive CIES Football Observatory’s metrics developed to assess players’ sporting achievement and potential. It is calculated by taking into consideration the average match level in which players participated according to the experience capital method, official game minutes played over the last 365 days, as well as pitch performance compared to both teammates, opponents and same profile’s players.

The role-based approach used to determine technical profiles clusters players according to the level of their involvement in eight areas of the game with respect to teammates: air defence, ground defence, recovery, distribution, take on, chance creation, air attack and shooting.

An exclusive tool, powered by InStat data, displaying big-5 league players’ technical profile, performance level, age, contractual status, estimated transfer value and suitable potential replacements among footballers from 59 leagues worldwide is accessible for free here. A premium version is available for professionals. Do not hesitate to contact us for more information and insights.

Issue number 387 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks big-5 league teams according to transfer fees invested to sign their current squad members. Manchester City heads the rankings closely followed by local rivals Manchester United. Chelsea completes an all-English podium, while Paris St-Germain tops the table for non-Premier League teams.

The Manchester teams are the only clubs worldwide with a transfer fee spending to assemble the squad greater than one billion euro (including add-ons irrespective of their effective payment). Real Madrid (€721M) has the costliest squad in the Spanish Liga, Bayern Munich (€499M) in the German Bundesliga and Juventus (€473M) in the Italian Serie A. The data for 2020/21 is available here.

The freshly released CIES Football Observatory September’s Monthly Report presents further financial analysis of big-5 league transfers. It notably shows that Manchester United tops the table for the most negative net transfer spending over the last decade (-€1.27 billion), ahead of Manchester City (€902M) and Paris St-Germain (€868M).

During the last transfer window, Premier League teams invested an all-time high of €2.6 billion (including add-ons) to sign new players. Overall, the big-5 league clubs’ expenditure reached €5.2 billion for the summer and €6.2 bn for the whole 2022 calendar year. This is the second highest figure ever observed, an increase of 61% compared to 2021 and just 7% below the record high of 2019. More exclusive transfer fee data is available for free in the freshly published 77th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report.

An all-time high was also recorded with regard to the share of transfer fees paid by English Premier League teams out of total big-5 league clubs’ investments. From an average of 38.7% during the ten-year period studied, this percentage reached a peak of 48.5% in 2022. In ten years, the English Premier League cumulated a transfer deficit of -€9.5 billion, followed by the Italian Serie A with “just” -€1.4 bn. The French Ligue 1 is at the opposite end (+€350M).

Three French clubs, LOSC Lille (+€379M), Olympique Lyonnais (+€282M) and Monaco (+€215M), are at the top of the rankings for current big-5 league teams with the most positive net transfer spending over the past decade. Manchester United is at the opposite end (-€1.27 billion), followed by Manchester City (-€902M) and Paris St-Germain (-€868M). Manchester City (€279M) heads the table for transfer fees received from big-5 league clubs in 2022, ahead of AFC Ajax (€226M).

All CIES Football Observatory’s reports available for free here!

Issue number 386 of the Weekly Post crunched InStat technical performance data within the framework of the freshly conceived CIES Football Observatory’s Impact Score (IS) method to unveil 250 hot prospects born in 2000 or after in 59 leagues worldwide. Vinícius Júnior (2000, IS of 100), Bukayo Saka (2001, IS 92), Joško Gvardiol (2002, IS 94), Jude Bellingham (2003, IS 91) and Pablo Gavi (2004 or younger, IS 93) top the rankings per year of birth.

Sandro Tonali and Vitinha Ferreira complete the podium for players born in 2000, such as Jurriën Timber and Gonçalo Inácio for 2001-born footballers. The second and third-ranked players for the other years of birth are Piero Hincapié and Eduardo Camavinga (2002), Jamal Musiala and Harvey Elliott (2003), as well as Gabriel Slonina and Daniil Khudyakov (2004 or younger). The Impact Score values for footballers from the 59 leagues selected are available for free in this exclusive tool.

The Impact Score is calculated from the average match level in which players participated according to the experience capital method, their amount of official game minutes played over the last 365 days and their pitch performance compared to both teammates and opponents, as well as with respect to players with the same technical profile as per the role-based approach also freshly developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team.

The CIES Football Observatory launches its 2022/23 season with the final tables’ forecasting for 23 top divisions of UEFA member associations. The predictions were carried out from a statistical model including teams’ performances over the two previous seasons, current players’ experience capital and clubs’ transfer market expenditure. The full tables are available for free in the 385th Weekly Post.

Inter would be the only new champion in the five major European leagues, where hierarchies are well established. Sporting CP would be crowned in Portugal instead of Porto, while Fenerbahçe would overtake Trabzonspor in Turkey. Slavia Praha in the Czech Republic, Midtjylland in Denmark, Rangers in Scotland, as well as Young Boys in Switzerland are also supposed to beat previous champions.

With respect to relegation fight in the five major European leagues, the following teams already present in the top division are in great danger: Southampton in the Premier League; Mallorca and Cádiz in the Liga; Clermont Foot, Troyes and Angers in the Ligue 1; Hertha BSC and Bochum in the Bundesliga; as well as Salernitana in the Serie A. An update will be available on demand after the end of the transfer window.

Dear subscriber,

The CIES Football Observatory devised a brief questionnaire aiming at understanding what people passionate about football like you consider as worrying in the men’s professional game. We warmly thank those who already answered and we kindly ask to the others to take one minute to answer now.

The main findings will be published online on our website and social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok).

Please click here to complete the questionnaire.

Thank you very much!

The June 2022 Monthly Report of the CIES Football Observatory analyses the evolution in the squad make up of clubs from ten women’s leagues worldwide since 2017. The study notably shows that the strong increase in the percentage of minutes played by expatriate footballers observed between 2017 and 2021 did not continue in the last year.

As for imported players, after four consecutive years of growth, the average age of line-ups fielded by teams did not increase during last year. Since 2017, however, a growth was recorded in eight of the ten leagues studied, with a notable rise in the English Women’s Super League (+2.3 years of age). By league, in 2022, the values vary between 22.1 years of age in the Netherlands and 27.1 in the United States.

The United States also stand out as the main exporting country. With 82 footballers abroad, US citizens outrank the Swedes (46 expatriates) and the Canadians (42). Players from the United States are present in all the leagues studied, with a maximum of 22 representatives in the Swedish Damallsvenskan. In total, 73 associations have at least one expatriate in one of the ten leagues analysed.

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The last CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post before the summer break presents the top 100 estimated transfer values for players worldwide. Thanks to his fresh three-year contract extension with Paris St-Germain, Kylian Mbappé (€206) is back at the top of the list. The French world champion outranks the previous leader and recent Champions League winner Vinícius Júnior (€185M), as well as the new Manchester City striker Erling Haaland (€153M).

The Portuguese Rúben Dias has the greatest estimated transfer value for a centre back: €110M. Gianluigi Donnarumma (€74M) tops the table for goalkeepers, Trent Alexander-Arnold (€87M) for full backs and Pedri González (€135M) for midfielders. Benfica’s striker Darwin Núñez (47th, €70M) has the highest valuation for non-big-5 league players. The 30-year-old Kevin de Bruyne (76th, €57) is the oldest player in the top 100, while 17-year-old Pablo Gavi (73rd, €58M) is the youngest one.

English Premier League clubs dominate the ranking with 41 representatives in the top 100. Transfer value estimate intervals for all big-5 league footballers are available for free here. More information on the CIES Football Observatory approach to assess the transfer value of professional football players on a scientific basis is available in this freshly published peer-reviewed paper. Please contact us to know more about pour services.

TOP 100

Issue number 383 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 footballers who have not yet celebrated their 20th birthday who gained the most playing experience during the first semester of the year. Borussia Dortmund’s and England’s midfielder Jude Bellingham heads the rankings ahead of the FC Barcelona’s and Spain’s duo Pablo Gavi and Pedri González.

Fulham’s FC Fábio Carvalho (7th) is the top ranked player outside of the big-5, ahead of Sparta Prague’s Adam Hložek and Martin Vitík. The podium of U20 footballers playing outside of Europe who gained the most experience since the start of the year is composed of Marcos Leonardo (Santos FC), Juan David Mosquera (Independiente Medellín) and Santiago Simón (River Plate).

The rankings were established according to the experience capital method, which takes into consideration minutes played in official games and their sporting level. This method allows us to combine into a single metrics players’ employment and the level of games in which they participated. More information is available in this Report and on demand.

With the 2021/22 seasons coming to an end, this CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the Best XI for 32 European leagues using its exclusive Impact Score approach combining team results with player employment and technical performance as per InStat data. Tactical formations were chosen by first including top-ranked players in the most frequent position played and adding then footballers for complementary positions.

Players from 21 clubs were selected in the Best XIs for the big-5: Liverpool (6), Manchester City (4) and Tottenham (Harry Kane) in England; Real Madrid (6), Sevilla (2), Barcelona (2) and Betis (Nabil Fekir) in Spain; Milan (4), Inter (3), Juventus (2), Napoli (Amir Rrahmani) and Fiorentina (Nicolás González) in Italy; Bayern Munich (9), Borussia Dortmund (Jude Bellingham) and Bochum (Manuel Riemann) in Germany; Paris St-Germain (5), Marseille (2), Rennes (Benjamin Bourigeaud), Monaco (Aurélien Tchouaméni), Strasbourg (Ludovic Ajorque) and Nice (Walter Benítez) in France.

The ten youngest players in the Best XIs are Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Arsen Zakharyan (Dinamo Moskow), Ilya Zabarnyi (Dynamo Kiev), Adam Hlozek (Sparta Prague), Nuno Mendes (PSG), Jakub Kaminski (Lech Poznan), Ryan Gravenberch (Ajax), Karim Adeyemi (RB Salzburg), Liel Abada (Celtic) and Jurriën Timber (Ajax). The Post also includes the technical profile of players selected according to fifteen categories as explained in this Report.

The 381st CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses the passing game of goalkeepers from 36 leagues worldwide as per data from InStat. The percentage of long forward passes out of total passes stretches from just 8.2% for Paris St-Germain goalie Keylor Navas up to 83.6% for Paksi FC’s Gergö Rácz. Only goalkeepers who played at least 1’000 domestic league minutes (injury time included) were taken into consideration.

The record percentage of long forward passes (at least 40 meters with a span angle of 90°) at big-5 league level was recorded for Burnley FC’s Nick Pope (73.1%) ahead of CA Osasuna’s Sergio Herrera (72.2%). In absolute terms, the greatest value was recorded for Bochum’s Manuel Riemann (27.5 per match on average). Derby County’s Ryan Allsop made the most passes per game (50.0), ahead of Hamburger SV Daniel Heuer Fernandes (48.4).

Goalkeepers passing data heavily reflects the style of play of teams. On a league level, the percentage of goalkeepers’ long forward passes stretches from only 35.7% in the Turkish Süper Lig up to 58.4% in the Scottish Premiership. High figures were also recorded in the English Championship (49.0%) and the Argentinean Liga Profesional (47.5%). More technical data from InStat is exclusively available in the CIES Football Observatory Performance Stats tool.

The 380th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 80 associations with the most players abroad in 135 leagues worldwide. Brazil heads the pack with 1,219 expatriates, followed by France (978) and Argentina (815). While the number of Brazilians and Argentineans abroad went just slightly up since 2017, that of the French increased more significantly.

England’s fourth place is explained essentially by the strong presence of players having grown up in this country in teams of other United Kingdom associations, as well as in Ireland: about 57% of the total number of English expatriates. Germany’s fifth place is notably related to the return migration of numerous players of Turkish origin born and raised in Germany.

Since 2017, the greatest increases in absolute terms were recorded for the French (+208 expatriates), the Dutch (+137) and the Colombians (+124). In relative terms, among nations with at least 100 expatriates, the highest rises were recorded for the Venezuelans (+86%), the Dutch (+60%) and the Austrian (+51%). More exclusive analysis is available for free in the 75th Monthly Report and the CIES Football Observatory Atlas of Migration.

Issue number 379 of the Weekly Post presents the top 10 estimated transfer values as per the CIES Football Observatory algorithm for 10 non-big-5 league top divisions worldwide: Portugal, the Netherlands, Brazil, Belgium, the United States/Canada, Austria, Turkey, Denmark, Switzerland and Scotland. The greatest value overall was recorded for SL Benfica’s striker Darwin Núñez (€71 million).

Darwin Núñez meets all the most important criteria for a very high valuation: young age (not yet 23 years old), long contract (more than three years remaining), playing for a competitive team (SL Benfica) and performing very well, notably from a goal-scoring perspective. Rumours of the Uruguayan striker’s departure for an English top club are entirely plausible. As the latter tend to push up inflation in player prices, a €80-million deal, as publicly reported, is perfectly imaginable.

The following players have the top estimated values in the nine remaining leagues surveyed: Antony dos Santos (NED, €57M), Charles De Ketelaere (BEL, €40M), Gabriel Barbosa (BRA, €39M), Karim Adeyemi (AUT, €31M), Muhammed Aktürkoglu (TUR, €20M), Alan Velasco (USA, €20M), Liel Abada (SCO, €19M), Anders Dreyer (DEN, €15M), as well as Dan Ndoye (SUI, €15M).

Only players for whom we were able to recover the information on contract duration were included in the analysis. Nevertheless, as contract information for the most prominent footballers is generally available, the rankings should accurately reflect reality. Transfer values estimates for players in the big-5 can be accessed for free here. Please contact us for more information on our services.

No team during current big-5 league season fielded club-trained players for a greater percentage of minutes than Athletic Club: 55.8%. The Basque side outranks local rivals Real Sociedad (43.9%), while Celta Vigo (41.2%) complete an all-Spanish podium. The Slovaks of MŠK Žilina (85.5%) top the table for clubs from 40 leagues worldwide. The data for all clubs is available in the 378th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post.

The Colombians of Envigado (76.4%) head the rankings for the nine non-European leagues included in the study, ahead of four Argentinean teams (CA Banfield, CA Lanús, Rosario Central and CA Unión) and the Brazilians of Corinthians (56.3%). Club-trained footballers are defined as players who have been at their employer clubs for at least three years between the seasons during which they celebrated their 15th and 21st birthday.

At league level, the figures stretch from a record-low of 4.0% in the Greek Super League to a record-high of 26.0% in the Argentinean Liga Professional. On average, teams from the 40 leagues surveyed fielded club-trained players for 15.0% of domestic league minutes. Among the 42 teams who did not use club-trained footballers notably are Brentford, Bayer Leverkusen, Bologna and Udinese.

More exclusive information on clubs from 31 European top divisions is available for free in the CIES Football Observatory Demographic Atlas.

Issue number 377 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post relies on technical data produced by InStat to unveil the best performing outfield players in 32 European leagues. Footballers were classified into fifteen technical profiles and ranked according to their performance level with respect to both teammates and opponents, their playing time, as well as their team and league sporting strength.

The following players top the table for the seven attacking profiles: Trent Alexander-Arnold (playmaker creator), Andrew Robertson (playmaker infiltrator), Bukayo Saka (infiltrator creator), Karim Benzema (shooter creator), Vinícius Júnior (shooter infiltrator), Thomas Müller (allarounder target man) and Robert Lewandowski (target man shooter).

At the top of the eight defensive profiles are Éder Militão (ground-to-air blocker), Virgil van Dijk (air blocker filter man), Aymeric Laporte (air blocker playmaker), David Alaba (ground blocker filter man), João Cancelo (ground blocker playmaker), Rodri Hernández (filter man playmaker), Bernardo Silva (defensive infiltrator) and Toni Kroos (defensive shooter).

To know more about the fifteen technical profiles conceived by the CIES Football Observatory research team, please refer to the 74th edition of the Monthly Report. Feel you free to contact us for more information.

Pioneers in the transfer economic valuation field, since 2010, the CIES Football Observatory has been developing a statistical method to assess market prices for professional football players. Issue number 376 of the Weekly Post presents the highest estimated transfer values for the 50 footballers who did not yet celebrate their 23rd birthday and made their big-5 league debut during current season.

Joško Gvardiol tops the table with an estimated value of €96.2M. While only 20-years-old, the centre back has established himself as a pillar of both RB Leipzig and Croatia. If transferred, he could break the record for the greatest fee ever paid for a defender. Gvardiol’s teammate at RB Leipzig Dominik Szoboszlai and FC Barcelona’s prodigy Pablo Gavi complete the podium for the most expensive U23 big-5 league rookies.

To know more about the method and variables used by the CIES Football Observatory research team to assess football players’ transfer fees and values, please refer to this scientific paper freshly published in the peer-review open access journal Economies. The fee estimate intervals for all big-5 league players are available for free on our website. Please contact us for more information about our approach and services.

Issue number 375 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 best performing U21 outfield players from 32 European leagues according to a brand-new approach taking into consideration players’ performance compared to teammates, the employer team’s sporting level, as well as that of opponents. Bukayo Saka (Arsenal) outranks Mason Greenwood (Manchester United) and Patrick Wimmer (Arminia Bielefeld).

For all players listed, the study does not only mention their pitch position, but also the role played within the team according to fifteen technical profile categories. The latter are built from eleven game indicators collected by our partners InStat, covering eight different game areas as detailed in the 74th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report: air defence, ground defence, recovery, distribution, take on, chance creation, air attack and shooting.

Bukayo Saka, for example, is part of the “infiltrator creator” category, defining players particularly active in the “take on” and “chance creation” areas. Mason Greenwood has a “shooter infiltrator” profile (“shooting and take on”), while Patrick Wimmer a “shooter creator” one (“shooting and chance creation). Players from 26 leagues and 14 technical profiles are in the top 100, with the French Ligue 1 (14 players) and the “infiltrator creators” (24 players) being the most represented.

Issue number 374 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 60 leagues worldwide according to the percentage of minutes played since the 1st of January 2021 by footballers that did not yet celebrate their 21st birthday at matches played. The greatest figures were recorded in the Venezuelan (18.8%) and Danish top divisions (16.5%). The Saudi Pro League is at the opposite end (1.6%).

Regarding the average age of line-ups fielded, the lowest values were recorded in the Croatian top division (25.3 years of age), the Mexican Liga Expansión and the Danish Superliga. At the other end of the spectrum are three non-European leagues: the Paraguayan top division (28.9 years of age), the Thai League 1 and the Primera División in Bolivia.

More information on clubs from 31 top divisions of UEFA member associations is available for free in the exclusive CIES Football Observatory Demographic Atlas. Additional data is published on our social media accounts: Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Do not hesitate to follow us to gain even more knowledge on our beloved beautiful game!

Issue number 373 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 90 top divisions worldwide according to the average tenure duration of coaches (as per last 1st March). The values stretch from 1,536 days in Northern Ireland to only 156 days in Saudi Arabia. More exclusive analysis on coaches is available in the 73th edition of the Monthly Report.

The average tenure duration of coaches in Europe is greater than in other continents: 506 days for clubs in UEFA member associations and 402 days for teams in other continents. An even shorter average tenure duration was recorded in clubs from the South American confederation: 303 days. This goes hand in hand with a greater player turnover.

The average tenure duration is much higher than the median one: 459 days compared to 243 days. This reflects the fact that some coaches are able to hold their position for much longer than the usual period. However, on the 1st of March, only 20% of coaches had been in their position for more than two years. At the opposite, 39% were in place since less than six months.

Issue number 372 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the net spending on international transfers concluded since July 2017 by clubs of the 40 most active nations from an incoming and outcoming fee volume perspective. England (- €4.35 billion) and Portugal (+€1.15 billion) recorded the most negative and, respectively, positive trade balances.

Italy has the second most negative trade balance on international transfers concluded since the start of the 2017/18 season (-€910 million), followed by China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Spain. At the opposite end of the table, Brazil (+€1.02 billion) is just behind Portugal and outranks the Netherlands, France, Argentina and Belgium.

The data includes eventual add-ons irrespective of their effective payment, as well as sell-on percentages. However, this information, such as that on transfer fees themselves, is not always available. The figures presented are thus to be considered approximations that are as accurate as possible. FIFA’s annual reports with official aggregated data are available for free here.

Issue number 371 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 38 leagues worldwide according to the InStat data on stoppage due to fouls. The two greatest figures were recorded for Latin American leagues, the Mexican and Colombian top divisions, while the highest fouls’ pause time out of the 33 European leagues surveyed was measured in Portugal.

All the five Latin American championships included in the sample are in the top 10 positions of the rankings. On average, the stoppage time for fouls is 15’43” in Latin America and 13’04” in Europe. This reflects a higher number of fouls per match (on average 27.0 vs 25.7), but also a greater time pause per foul (35.2” vs 30.8”).

The extreme values for fouls per match were recorded in Serbia (30.7) and the Netherlands (20.3), while those for stoppage time per foul were measured in Colombia (38.3”) and Belarus (25.3”). The data refers to the ongoing season for winter leagues and to the 2021 season for summer ones (including current season’s matches if already started).

Dear subscribers, thanks to the vigilance of many of you, we have found several omissions in our 370th Weekly Post. We are really sorry about it. Finally, the Portuguese side of SL Benfica leads the table with about €379 M.

Real Madrid ran the second most profitable academy from an economic perspective during the period considered (€330 M), while AS Monaco completes the podium (€285 M) ahead of the Dutch side of AFC Ajax (€283 M). Flamengo (13th), River Plate (27th) and Santos (28th) are in the top three positions for non-European teams.

With €2.03 billion, English clubs generated then most money by the transfer of academy graduates since July 2015, just ahead French teams (€1.61 billion). Spanish clubs (€1.39 billion) complete the podium per nation, ahead of the Italians (€1.11 billion), the Brazilians (€951 M), the Germans (€916 M), the Portuguese (€788 M), the Dutch (€709 M) and the Argentineans (€566 M).

Issue number 370 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the top 50 of clubs worldwide having generated the most incomes since July 2015 from the transfer of players graduated from their youth academy. Thanks to the paying fee transfer of nine players trained, including Kylian Mbappé’s record one to PSG, AS Monaco (€246 M) tops the table, ahead of Real Madrid (€235 M) and Olympique Lyonnais (€228 M).

Six teams outside of big-5 league countries are in the top 20 positions of the rankings: AFC Ajax (4th, €211 M generated by the transfer of ten academy pupils), SL Benfica (5th, €202 M), PSV Eindhoven (8th, 142 M), Dinamo Zagreb (11th, €110 M), Sporting CP (12th, €106 M not including the further €20 M to come for Rafael Leão following the recent CAS award), RSC Anderlecht (16th, 91 M), as well as RB Salzburg (20th, € 76 M).

With €1.17 billion, French clubs generated then most money by the transfer of youth academy players since July 2015, just ahead English teams (€1.13 billion). Despite their low propensity to field club-trained footballers, Italian teams complete the podium with €743 M (with Atalanta 1st), ahead of the Spanish (€703 M, of which one third by Real Madrid), the Dutch (€564 M), the German (€551 M, with Bayer Leverkusen 1st) and the Brazilians (€403 M).

The 72nd Monthly Report presents the method developed by the CIES Football Observatory to rank footballers according to their style of play. From the data gathered by InStat, the study notably calculates statistical distances between players, a particularly useful approach from a scouting perspective. The sample is composed of 7,215 footballers from clubs in 36 top and second division leagues across Europe.

The analysis reveals that, for example, James Maddison is the big-5 league footballer closest to Kylian Mbappé from the perspective of the technical actions performed. This exercise can be carried out for any player. Always at big-5 league level, Dusan Vlahovic is the footballer who is closest to Erling Haaland, Paulo Dybala to Lionel Messi, Romain Faivre to Neymar Junior, Dominik Szoboszlai to Kevin de Bruyne, Remo Freuler to Jorginho Frello or Jonathan Tah to Virgil van Dijk.

The study also puts forward footballers whose performances deviate most positively from those of teammates for each of the eight player profile classes built from a principal component analysis. The three youngest players in the top 10 of a class are Yvan Dibango (FC Isloch, 6th in the “Trippier” class), El Bilal Touré (Stade de Reims, 8th in the “Lukaku” class) and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Rubin Kazan, 9th in the “Sterling” class”).

Clubs and agents interested in knowing more about the work of our research group, notably the freshly developed Toolkit, are kindly invited to contact us.

Issue number 369 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks teams from 50 top divisions worldwide according to the number of players fielded in domestic league games during the last 365 days. For current big-5 league teams, the values stretch from an eye-staggering 55 players for Genoa down to only 27 for West Ham United.

The highest figure overall was recorded for Deportivo Pasto. The Colombians fielded up to 70 players in the 40 domestic league matches played during the last year. They outrank the Romanians of Dinamo Bucuresti and the Welsh of Cefn Druids (both 63 players). The four highest figures in the big-5 were all recorded for Italian Serie A teams: Genoa (55), Salernitana (53), Venezia (47) and Spezia (46).

The record figures for UEFA Champions League teams are much lower: 38 players for Paris St-Germain and 36 for Juventus. LOSC Lille and Manchester City are at the opposite end: 28 players for both. By league, the average values per club vary between 31 players in England and Moldavia, up to a maximum of 47 in Colombia.

More exclusive squad management policies data and many other key statistical indicators are available in the freshly conceived CIES Football Observatory Toolkit, a unique platform specifically devised for club directors and top management. Do not hesitate to contact us (football.observatory@unine.ch) to know more about this brand new tool.

Dear subscriber and friend of football,

The CIES Football Observatory academic team devised a brief and anonymous questionnaire aiming at understanding what people passionate about football consider as worrying in the beautiful game today. We would be grateful if you could take one minute to answer.

The main findings will be published online on our website and social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). A report outlining the main results of a previous survey on professional football is available here.

Please click here to complete the questionnaire. Thank you!

Issue number 368 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post crunched the InStat data on goal scoring chances and effective playing time for 36 European leagues since 2018/19 (or 2018) to determine the level of “game openness”. The findings show that clubs in leagues from the North/West part of the continent tend to play more openly than those from the South/East.

With an average of 11.7 chances and 63’21” effective time per match, the Dutch Eredivisie recorded the highest Game Openness Index, ahead of the German Bundesliga and the Belgian Pro League. At the opposite end is the Spanish Segunda División with just 8.7 chances and 55’06” of effective time. The Greek Super League and the Romanian Liga I also are at the bottom three of the rankings.

On average, the effective playing time of matches in the 36 leagues survey is just above 59 minutes: from 63’21” in the Netherlands to 54’55” in the Czech Republic. Teams create on average 10.2 goal scoring chances per match: from 11.9 in the German Bundesliga to 8.7 in both the Spanish second division and the Greek top one.

Issue number 367 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks current big-5 league clubs according to their net spending on transfer operations concluded over the last ten seasons. Manchester United tops the table with a negative balance of more than one billion euro, ahead of Manchester City and Paris St-Germain. Fourteen English clubs are in the top 20 of clubs with the most negative net transfer spending.

LOSC Lille clubs stands out at the opposite end with a positive transfer balance of €349 million over the last decade. The French side outranks league rivals Olympique Lyonnais and three Italian Serie A teams: Genoa, Udinese and Atalanta. The top three of current big-5 league clubs having generated the most incomes from transfers since 2012/13 are Chelsea, Monaco and Atlético Madrid. In total, 52 out 98 clubs have a positive net spending. This ratio is one (Brentford) out of 20 for Premier League teams.

Gathered with the greatest care through the cross-checking of all possible sources, whether official or unofficial, the data includes eventual add-on fees included in the deals, regardless of their actual payment. Within the limits of available information, incomes deriving from sell-on fees are also taken into account.

Issue number 366 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 players born in 2002 or after active in 31 European leagues outside of the big-5 with the highest InStat Index. The latter takes into consideration footballers’ pitch production depending on position played (centre back, winger, etc.) and the general level of the matches in which they participated.

The greatest score overall was recorded for AFC Ajax’s Ryan Gravenberch. Among midfielders, the Dutch talent ranks ahead Arsen Zakharyan (Dinamo Moscow) and Fábio Carvalho (Fulham). Running out contract, the latter is being courted by several major teams. The highest InStat Index for full backs was recorded for another AFC Ajax player who is attracting interest from clubs in the big-5: the 19-year-old Devyne Rensch.

The best score for other positions were measured for Oliver Dovin (Hammarby) among goalkeepers, Ilya Zabarnyi (Dynamo Kiev for centre backs and Jakub Kaminski (Lech Poznan) among forwards. Akinkunmi Amoo (Hammarby) and Sebastiano Esposito (Basel, on loan from Inter) complete the podium for strikers. The InStat Index for players from 36 European leagues is accessible for free in this exclusive tool. More information is available on demand.

For the first time, the CIES Football Observatory research team has compiled a study comparing from a demographic perspective the five major European leagues with ten additional competitions located in three other continents: America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, United States and Canada), Asia (South Korea, Japan, China), as well as Oceania (Australia and New Zealand). All the data is available for free in the 71st edition of the Monthly Report.

The study notably reveals that, during the second semester 2021, club-trained footballers played almost twice in non-European teams than in European ones: 19.4% of total domestic league minutes compared to 11.7%. However, for the MLS in the USA and Canada, players from clubs’ youth academies only played 9.2% of minutes. This is the second lowest figure after that recorded in the Italian Serie A (7.4%). The Argentinean Liga Profesional is at the opposite end with a record high of 29.4% of minutes played by club-trained footballers.

Boca Juniors stands out as the biggest training club with 78 footballers from its youth academy fielded by the 286 teams surveyed, 18 more than city rivals River Plate. The Colombians of Deportivo Cali (56 players) complete the podium of the most productive training teams, ahead of FC Barcelona (50), São Paulo (49) and Colo Colo (48). The 365th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the top 100 list of clubs having trained the most players fielded in the 15 leagues analysed.

Go to the Weekly Post

Go to the Monthly Report

The 364th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the rankings of European clubs having obtained penalties the most frequently since the start of the 2018/19 season as per InStat data. The sample is composed of teams always present in one of the 31 leagues surveyed during this period. Crvena Zvezda is at the top with a penalty every 239 minutes, while Manchester United heads the rankings in the big-5 (one every 299 minutes).

Paris St-Germain (305 minutes), Lazio and Inter (both 315’), Real Sociedad (374’), as well as Borussia Mönchengladbach and RB Leipzig (both 397’ ) top the table in the other major championships. Real Madrid scored all the 24 penalties obtained. The lowest conversion rate among big-5 league teams was recorded for Montpellier (8 out of 14, 57%) and the lowest overall was measured for Stoke City (6 out of 15, 40%). In total, the teams surveyed scored 78.6% of the penalties awarded.

The Greek of Panathinaikos obtained the most penalties compared to the number of big chances created: one penalty every 15 goal scoring chances. Bristol City are at the opposite end with one penalty obtained every 91 big chances. This is partially due to different refereeing styles. The number of penalties awarded per match vary indeed between 0.23 in the English Championship up to almost the double in the Ukrainian top division (0.45).

Issue number 363 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post compares points achieved by teams from 32 leagues of UEFA member associations with points expected according to a statistical model including ball possession and the number and distance of both shots taken and conceded (InStat data). With 2.71 points per match achieved and 1.75 expected, the Romanians of CFR Cluj have the most positive gap (+0.96). The Italian second division side Vicenza Virtus are at the opposite end (-0.81).

At big-5 league level, the greatest positive difference between points achieved and expected was recorded for Paris St-Germain (+0.77, 4th overall behind Cluj, Trabzonspor and FC Zurich), ahead of Milan AC (+0.71) and Eintracht Frankfurt (+0.50). At the other end of the spectrum are AS St-Etienne (-0.48), RB Leipzig (-0.43) and Greuther Fürth (-0.42). In the English Premier League, the gaps vary between +0.40 for Tottenham Hotspur and -0.32 for Newcastle United.

Bayern Munich is the most dominant teams from an expected point perspective (2.65 per match), followed by Crvena Zvezda, Ajax, Celtic, Rangers, Dynamo Kyiv, Porto, Manchester City, Young Boys and RB Salzburg. Conversely, Hrvatski dragovoljac, Sandhausen and Fortuna Sittard are the three most dominated teams among the 518 surveyed. Further data from our partners InStat data is accessible for free in the Performance Stats tool.

Issue number 362 of the Weekly Post presents the traditional bi-annual list of the 100 big-5 league players with the top estimated transfer value according to the CIES Football Observatory algorithm. The Real Madrid’s Brazilian rising star Vinícius Júnior (€166 million) outranks Phil Foden and Erling Haaland. These figures are irrespective of eventual buy-out clauses in players’ contract.

Per position, the top transfer values were calculated for Gianluigi Donnarumma among goalkeepers, Rúben Dias for centre backs, Alphonso Davies among full backs, Jude Bellingham for defensive midfielders, Florian Wirtz for attacking ones, as well as for Vinícius Júnior among forwards. Kevin de Bruyne has the greatest valuation among players aged 30 or over, while Kylian Mbappé tops the list for players running out of contract next June.

The values were calculated using the exclusive econometric approach developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team. A paper presenting the method has been recently published in the peer-review and open access journal Economies. It can be accessed here. The transfer value estimates for all big-5 league players are also available in free access here. Go to the Weekly Post to find out the top 100!

Issue number 361 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the best XI for each of the five major European leagues. Players were selected according to the CIES Performance Index powered by Opta data. Only footballers fielded for at least 900 domestic league minutes since the start of the 2021/22 season were included in the line-ups.

Ten of the eleven players in the English Premier League best XI are from Manchester City (Dias, Laporte, Cancelo, Rodri, Silva) and Liverpool FC (Alexander-Arnold, Henderson, Salah, Jota, Mané), the only exception being Chelsea FC’s goalkepeer Edouard Mendy. In Spain, we find six Real Madrid players (Courtois, Alaba, Casemiro, Modri?, Benzema and Vinícius), three from Sevilla (Koundé, Acuña and Jordán), and one from both Barcelona (Dest) and Betis (Fekir).

Only three clubs are represented in the German Bundesliga best XI: Bayern (7 players), Borussia Dortmund (3) and Bayer Leverkusen (Patrik Schick). Conversely, the French Ligue 1 best XI includes players from a record number of six clubs: Paris St-Germain (4 players), Olympique de Marseille (3), as well as Montpellier, Lens, Rennes and Brest. Finally, in Italy, Inter is the most represented club (4 players), ahead of Milan (3), Napoli (3) and Sassuolo (Domenico Berardi).

Issue number 360 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 50 outfield players and the 50 goalkeepers worldwide who accumulated the greatest pitch experience since the start of the year. The rankings are elaborated on the basis of the exclusive capital experience method, which combines within a single metric the playing time of footballers and the sporting level of the teams for which they played or the competitions they participated in.

The Real Madrid and formerly Bayern Munich David Alaba heads the pack for outfield players ahead of two other centre backs: Rúben Dias (Manchester City and Portugal) and Milan Škriniar (Inter and Slovakia). Carlos Casemiro (Real Madrid and Brazil) and Karim Benzema (Real Madrid and France) top the table for midfielders and forwards. For goalkeepers, Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid and Belgium) outranks Jan Oblak (Atlético Madrid and Slovenia) and Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich and Germany).

Since 2018, the winners were Ivan Rakiti? and Alisson Becker (2018), Virgil van Dijk and Ederson Moraes (2019), as well as Andrew Robertson and Thibaut Courtois (2020). The final 2021 rankings will be published next January. The full experience capital methodology is presented in the seventieth edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report, which also presents current tables for players born in 2001 or after.

Go to the Weekly Post with the top 50s for goalkeepers and outfield players

Go to the Monthly Report with the methodology & young players rankings

Issue number 359 of the Weekly Post presents the ten U23 big-5 league players per position with the greatest estimated transfer value as per the exclusive CIES Football Observatory econometric model. Three U23 forwards could theoretically be transferred for up to €150M or more during January’s window: Erling Haaland (Borussia Dortmund and Norway), Vinícius Júnior (Real Madrid and Brazil) and Phil Foden (Manchester City and England).

For other positions, the top estimated transfer values were recorded for Gianluigi Donnarumma (Paris St-Germain and Italy) among goalkeepers, Eric García (Barcelona and Spain) for centre backs, Alphonso Davies (Bayern Munich and Canada) for full backs, Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund and England) for defensive midfielders, as well as for Florian Wirtz (Bayer Leverkusen and Germany) among attacking midfielders.

Seventeen of the sixty U23 footballers listed play in the English Premier League, fourteen in the German Bundesliga, twelve in the Spanish Liga, ten in the French Ligue 1 and only seven in the Italian Serie A. Bayer Leverkusen is the most represented club with six players, followed by Barcelona (5) and Chelsea (4). The transfer value estimate intervals for all big-5 league players are available for free on the CIES Football Observatory website.

Do not hesitate to contact us for more information on our approach and services.

Issue number 358 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses the InStat data on the number of passes attempted per match and their average length for teams from 40 leagues worldwide. The multiplication of these two variables shows the ball circulation distance for teams during possession. This distance varies between 12.8 kilometres per match for the Scots of Celtic FC and 6.9 km for the Mexicans of Atlético San Luis.

At big-5 league level, the teams moving most the ball are Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga (4th among the 654 teams analysed), Manchester City in the Premier League (5th), Sevilla in the Liga (6th), Monaco in the Ligue 1 (29th), as well as Fiorentina in the Serie A (51th). At the top of the rankings for the four non-European leagues surveyed are Flamengo in Brazil, Tigres UANL in Mexico, Atlético Nacional in Colombia and Unión La Calera in Chile.

The lowest values for the average length of passes attempted were recorded for two teams with a well-defined style of play: Roberto De Zerbi’s Shakhtar Donetsk and Mauricio Pochettino’s Paris St-Germain (15.7 meters in both cases). Three British teams are at the opposite end of the table: the Scots of Livingston FC (24.4 m) and Motherwell FC (23.2 m), as well as the English side Birmingham City (23.4 m).

Full data for free here!

Issue number 357 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks teams from 84 top divisions worldwide according to the number of players fielded in domestic league matches during the last 365 days. The figures greatly vary from only 21 players at the Finnish side Inter Turku up to 61 for four clubs: Club Aurora (BOL), Colo Colo (CHI), EC Juventude (BRA) and Royal AM (RSA).

At the level of the five major European leagues, Genoa Calcio fielded the most players in domestic league matches since the 15th November 2020: 50 footballers. Two English clubs also engaged in European Cup competitions are at the opposite end of the table: Manchester City and West Ham United (25 players). Among the 14 big-5 league teams who fielded less than 30 players notably are Spanish champions Atlético Madrid (26 players) and European champions Chelsea FC (29).

Per league, the average number of players fielded per team stretches from 25.7 in the Faroe Islands up to 48.4 in Honduras. In the big-5, the extreme values were recorded in the English Premier League (31.0) and the Italian Serie A (37.7). Per Confederation, the figures vary from 35.3 at AFC level up to 43.5 in the CONMEBOL. Click here to access the Post.

Issue number 356 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses the data produced by our partners SkillCorner to unveil the average sprinting (>7.0 m/s or 25.2 km/h) distance per team in 27 leagues worldwide. The values stretch from 2.23km at Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United to only 1.04km at the Ukrainian side Metalist 1925 Kharkiv.

In only five teams among the 492 surveyed, players sprinted for more than 2 kilometres per match: the Swiss and Champions League side BSC Young Boys, the Dutch clubs SC Cambuur and Heracles Almelo, as well as the English Championship leaders AFC Bournemouth. Athletic Club (1.99km) tops the table in the Spanish Liga, Milan AC (1.91km) in the Italian Serie A, AS Monaco (1.89km) in the French Ligue 1 and Bayern Munich (1.85km) in the German Bundesliga.

The average sprinting distance per league vary from 1.70km in Swiss Super League and 1.26km in Scottish Premiership, with an overall average of 1.51km per team and match. The highest value at big-5 league level was recorded in the Spanish Liga (1.68km), while the lowest was measured in the German Bundesliga (1.47km). Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram for more exclusive football data analysis.

After the drop in 2020 within the context of the pandemic, the part of players imported from abroad in the squads of teams from 31 European top divisions has started to rise again. This is one of the main findings from the annual census carried out since 2009 by the CIES Football Observatory research team, published in the 69th edition of the Monthly Report.

Expatriate footballers currently represent 41.9% of players in the 473 clubs surveyed. For the first time in history, players having grown up outside of the association of their employer club represent the majority of footballers within the five major European championships, with a maximum of 60.6% in the Italian Serie A and a minimum of 38.1% in the Spanish Liga. The greatest proportion of expatriates overall was recorded in Cyprus (69.9%).

Despite the growth of expatriates, the presence of club-trained players has also continued to increase after the pandemic. However, the percentage footballers having been in their employer club for at least three seasons between 15 and 21 years of age remains much lower than in 2009: 18.0% as opposed to 23.1%. The slight recent increase is chiefly explained by the rise observed in the least competitive leagues, where clubs suffered the most from the pandemic.

The proportion of players recruited during the year decreased for the fourth consecutive time, reflecting a less frenetic transfer market. The percentage of new signings among squad members went down from 44.9% in 2017 to 40.4% in 2021. The longest average stay in the first team squad of the employer club was recorded for CSKA Moscow (4.83 years), followed by Real Madrid, Athletic Club, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Manchester City.

The full report is available for free here. Further data for the current season taking into account the employment rate of each player is accessible in the exclusive CIES Football Observatory Demographic Atlas. Please write us for more information.

Issue number 355 of the Weekly Post ranks big-5 league clubs according to the CIES Football Observatory’s Sustainable Squad Management (SSM) Index. The latter highlights teams built to last by combining players’ age (the younger, the better), average stay in the first team squad (the longer, the better) and contract duration (the longer, the better). The employment rate of each is also considered as a weighting factor (more minutes, greater importance).

Manchester City, Real Sociedad and Liverpool currently hold the most sustainable squads. Guardiola’s team fields slightly younger line-ups than big-5 league rivals (27.06 years vs 27.13). Moreover, players fielded have been for much longer in the first team squad (3.32 years vs 2.34) and have much longer contracts (3.32 years vs 2.30). The Basques field much younger line-ups (25.62 years) and their values in terms of stability (3.04 years) and contract duration (2.49 years) also are above the average.

Spezia Calcio fielded so far the youngest line-ups (24.61 years), while the longest average stay for players fielded was recorded for Burnley (4.07 years). The longest “on the pitch” average contract remaining duration was measured for Arsenal (3.69 years). The Gunners also field by far the youngest line-ups in the English Premier League (24.86 years). However, their stability is for now well below the big- 5 league average (1.75 years only). More information on the SSM Index is available here.

Issue number 354 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the most active dribblers in 33 leagues worldwide according to the data of our partners InStat. Only players having attempted at least 40 dribbles in the current season (or in 2021 for the Brazilian Serie A) are included in the rankings. A dribble is defined as an active action performed by a player in order to get through an opponent.

Players are ranked according to a Dribble Index, i.e. the percentage of successful dribbles divided by the dribbling attempt frequency (minutes of play per dribble). Then highest score overall was recorded for Wolverhampton Spanish winger Adama Traoré (11.2), ahead of Universidad de Chile’s Argentinean Nahuel Luján (9.7) and CSKA Moskow’s Nigerian Chidera Ejuke (9.3).

At the top of the rankings in the other main major leagues are Erick de Arruda (Cearà SC) in Brazil, Rafael Leão (Milan AC) in Italy, Kamaldeen Sulemana (Stade Rennais) in France, Cody Gakpo (PSV Eindhoven) in the Netherlands, Alphonso Davies (Bayern Munich) in Germany, Jordan Carrillo (Santos Laguna) in Mexico, Ivo Rodrigues (Famalicão FC) in Portugal and Vinícius Júnior (Real Madrid) in Spain.

AFC Ajax tops the CIES Football Observatory 2021 rankings of clubs having trained the most footballers playing in 31 top divisions of UEFA member countries. The Dutch team nurtured 81 players currently active in these championships, six more than Shakhtar Donetsk. Real Madrid and Barcelona co-head the table for players active in the five major European leagues (42). The top 100s are accessible for free here.

The CIES Football Observatory also developed the Training Index, an indicator weighting the number of players trained according to the sporting level of their employer clubs (through a coefficient based on domestic league and international club competitions results), their employment rate (over the last year), as well as their age (the younger, the better). Ajax also tops this table for players in the 31 European top divisions surveyed, ahead of Sporting Clube de Portugal and Real Madrid.

The highest Training Index when only considering big-5 league footballers was recorded for Real Madrid, ahead of FC Barcelona and Paris St-Germain. Ajax, Sporting Clube and Anderlecht are the best-ranked non big-5 league teams. As per UEFA definition, training clubs are those where footballers have played for at least three years between the ages of 15 and 21. The season during which players celebrated their 15th and 21st birthday are also included.

Issue number 352 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks teams from 41 leagues worldwide according to the ratio between big chances created and conceded as per data from our partners InStat. A big chance defines a clear-cut chance to score a goal. Partizan Belgrade (5.0) recorded the best ratio out of the 680 clubs surveyed, ahead of AFC Ajax (4.3) and RB Salzburg (4.1).

Manchester City tops the table for the five major European leagues with a ratio of 3.3. Guardiola’s side creates on average 8.4 big chances per game, while only conceding 2.6 to their opponents. Bayern Munich (3.0) and Paris St-Germain (2.4) complete the podium for the big-5, while Everton is fourth (2.3). At the bottom of the rankings are Granada, Greuther Fürth, Norwich City and Southampton.

River Plate is the most dominant team in the Argentinean top division with a big chance ratio of 2.5, ahead of Club Estudiantes, Vélez Sarsfield and Boca Juniors. In Brazil, Flamengo (1.8) outranks CA Mineiro, Fortaleza EC and Ceará SC. Per league, the number of big chances per game vary between 13.6 in the Swiss Super League down to only 8.4 in the Romanian Liga I.

Since last summer, the CIES Football Observatory has had the pleasure of working with the French leading company SkillCorner, specialised in the generation of physical data on football players. The 68th Monthly Report analyses the distances covered, notably according to running speed, for 7,855 matches played during the 2020 or 2020/21 seasons in 31 leagues from both Europe and America.

The study shows that players from European teams tend to cover more ground than those from South American clubs, which reflects a more rapid playing style. However, the gaps between the competitions analysed are not very marked. The values per outfield player and match stretch from 10.3km for the Spanish Liga and 9.6km in the Brazilian Serie A.

A significant link exists between the players’ age and distances covered, whether for total distance or that ran in high intensity (> 19.8 km/h). The strongest relation was recorded between the forwards’ age and high-speed runs. This finding confirms that the propensity of strikers to cover distances at high intensity decreases over the years, revealing the advantage of having young forwards in the squad.

Important differences at the level of total distances covered and the speed of runs also exist between positions. Midfielders run the most (10.6km per match on average), while centre backs the least (9.2km). Wingers cover the greatest distance both in high intensity (932m) and when sprinting (211m). In these cases too, the lowest figures were measured for centre backs.

Full study for free & more on our Twitter account

Issue number 351 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks clubs in 31 top divisions from UEFA member associations according to the percentage of domestic league minutes played by expatriates. The highest value overall was recorded for the Greek side Aris FC (98.4% of minutes), while Udinese Calcio (88.0%) tops the rankings for big-5 league clubs ahead of Chelsea FC (86.8%).

LOSC Lille, RB Leipzig and Atlético Madrid are the most foreign-oriented clubs in the other three major European championships, while Rangers FC tops the table in Scotland, Boavista FC in Portugal, Fatih Karagümrük in Turkey and SBV Vitesse in the Netherlands. The notion of expatriates refers to footballers who grew up in a different association from that of the employer club.

Only two teams out of the 474 surveyed did not field any expatriate player in domestic league games: the Ukrainian side FK Desna and the Basques of Athletic Club. The CIES Football Observatory is also happy to unveil that an improved version of the Demographic Atlas with current season’s data is now available here. Enjoy the tool!

Issue number 350 of the Weekly Post presents the estimated squad transfer values of the 98 teams in the big-5. The figures were calculated on the basis of the exclusive CIES Football Observatory algorithm. The two teams having invested the most to sign their current players, Manchester City and Manchester United, also are at the top of those with the highest estimated squad value.

The Manchester teams would potentially collect more than €1.2 billion in transfer indemnities if they decided put all their current squad members on the market. Chelsea completes the podium with an estimated squad value of €946 million. Barcelona heads the rankings in the Spanish Liga (€896M), Bayern Munich in the German Bundesliga (€890M), Paris St-Germain in the French Ligue 1 (€808M) and Juventus in the Italian Serie A (€618M).

The estimated transfer value of all English Premier League players totals €8.9 billion (€445M per team on average). For the other leagues of the big-5, these figures are €5.3 billion for the Spanish Liga (€263M per club), €4.5 billion for the German Bundesliga (€251M), €4.4 billion for the Italian Serie A (€222M) and €3.4 billion for the French Ligue 1 (€172M). The individual estimates for all big-5 league players are available here.

Issue number 349 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks teams from 72 top divisions worldwide according to the average age of line-ups fielded in the current season and the percentage of minutes played by footballers who did not yet celebrate their 21st birthday. Monaco played so far with the youngest line-ups in the five major European leagues (24.3 years), while Bayer Leverkusen fielded U21 players for the highest percentage of minutes (24%).

With 23% of domestic league minutes played by U21 footballers, Barcelona ranks second in the big-5 ahead of four French Ligue 1 teams (Nice, Rennes, Marseille and Reims). Arsenal fielded so far the youngest line-ups in the English Premier League (25.0 years), while Spezia did so in the Italian Serie A (24.8 years) and Real Sociedad in the Spanish Liga (25.5 years). At the opposite end for each big-5 league are Lazio (30.3), Elche (29.9), Burnley (29.3), Bochum (28.7) and Clermont Foot (28.0).

The Latvian side FK Metta fielded the youngest line-ups overall (20.2 years on average) and the Armenians of BKMA Yerevan top the table for the highest percentage of domestic league minutes played by U21 footballers (79%). On the contrary, 89 of the 1’041 teams surveyed did not field any U21 player, among which Wolfsburg, Newcastle United, Atlético Madrid, Juventus, West Ham United, Rangers FC, Trabzonspor, Mamelodi Sundowns, Columbus Crew and Al Hilal SFC.

The 348th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the forecasts for the 2021/22 season at the level of the five major European leagues. The statistical model used for this purpose includes the players’ experience, transfer fee investments to assemble squads, as well as each team’s performance in the last 365 days.

With respect to 2020/21, the only change from a champions perspective is supposed to take place in Spain, with Real Madrid finishing ahead of Atlético and Barcelona. In England, the top four would be the same as last season, with Tottenham fifth ahead of Everton. Norwich City, Watford and Newcastle United are the main candidates for relegation.

In Italy, Inter Milan would outrank Napoli and city rivals Milan AC, with Juventus only sixth. Wolfsburg are the most likely runners-up in the German Bundesliga, ahead of Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen. In France, after Paris St-Germain, we would find the two Olympique (Marseille and Lyon in this order), while St-Etienne is a serious candidate for relegation.

Issue number 347 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks teams from 36 domestic leagues worldwide – 32 in Europe and 4 in the Americas – according to the number of passes made per match during current season as per data provided by our partners InStat. Paris St-Germain tops the rankings with an average of 738 passes.

In terms of the percentage of passes made in the opposite half, the Ukrainians of Shakhtar Donetsk are clearly at the top with an astonishing 68%, ahead of Manchester City (60%) and Ajax (57%). At the bottom of the rankings are Cosenza (22%) and two big-5 league teams: Norwich City and Elche (both 25%). As for the rate of accurate passes, the values vary between 92.6% for Paris St-Germain and Lazio, down to just 66.1% for Salernitana.

Regarding the four non-European leagues included in the sample, the highest figure for passes was measured for Flamengo (606, 87.7% of which accurate), while the lowest was observed for the Mexican side Atlético San Luis (336, 76.8%). Flamengo tops the table also for the proportion of passes in the opposite half alongside the Colombians of Deportes Quindío (50.3%). Another Brazilian team, Grêmio, complete the podium.

Issue number 346 of the Weekly Post presents the annual CIES Football Observatory analysis on big-5 league teams’ transfer fee spending to assemble their squads. With an estimated €1.08 billion invested to sign their current players (possible add-ons included), Manchester City remains at the top of the rankings. However, with respect to the start of the 2020/21 season, the gap with Manchester United went down by almost €140 million: from €192M to just about €58M.

The Manchester teams are the only ones to have spent over a billion euro in transfer indemnities to make up their current squads. Paris St-Germain complete the podium (€957M, + €69M with respect to the previous season), followed by Real Madrid (€787M, + €79M) and Chelsea (€780M, + €17M). Three further English Premier League teams (Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham), as well as Barcelona and Juventus, also paid more than €500 M in transfer fees to assemble their squads.

Per league, the average transfer expenditure per team to sign current squad members vary between €410 million for the English Premier League (with a minimum of about €87M for Norwich City) and €131M for both the French Ligue 1 (with a minimum for Clermont Foot) and the German Bundesliga (with a minimum for Bochum). The data for 2020/21 are available here.

The 67th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report analyses from an economic perspective transfer operations carried out by big-5 league clubs during the last decade. It notably shows that the declining trend in investments after the health crisis has stopped. During the last transfer window, clubs from the five major European leagues spent 2% more than in the previous summer.

The study also shows that the pandemic has reinforced the domination of English Premier League clubs on the transfer market. The percentage of spending of the latter in comparison to the total big-5 league clubs’ transfer expenditure has increased from 35% between January 2012 and January 2020 to over 45% for the three post-COVID transfer windows.

The percentage of investments of the ten clubs having spent the most has also increased between these periods (from 33% to 35% per transfer window on average), as that of the ten most expensive transfers in comparison to the total (from 30% to 33%). All the indicators show a trend towards a concentration of spending from the richest clubs, in particular the wealthiest Premier League ones.

Six English teams are at the top of the rankings for the most negative post-pandemic net transfer spending, with Manchester United (-€217 million) ahead of Chelsea (-€205 M) and Arsenal (-€194 M). Since the COVID crisis, English top division clubs recorded a total deficit of almost two billion euro in transfer operations. Conversely, Spanish Liga teams registered a positive net balance (+€200 million).

Within the context of a general crisis, the English Premier League is the only competition where a majority of clubs invest massively on the transfer market. This allowed many teams from the other big-5 leagues, and, in a cascade effect, further down, to limit the impact of the health crisis and shows the importance of a global transfer system as it currently exists.

At the same time, the dependence of a growing number of clubs even within the wealthiest leagues on transfer incomes highlights the weakness of the current professional football economic system. The survival of more and more teams pivots indeed on the profits generated through the transfer of their best players. This situation is both financially dangerous and sportingly limiting.

FULL REPORT

Age categories in youth football are generally defined from January 1st onwards. Issue number 345 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses the month of birth of 43,938 players fielded in 2021 in 119 leagues worldwide. The study confirms the relative age effect, i.e. the advantage to be born early in the year to make a career.

In total, 31.2% of players in the sample are born in the first trimester of the year. In contrast, only 19.0% are born in the last trimester. Without relative age effect, these proportions should have been around 25%. Per national origin, the stronger concentration of footballers born in the first trimester was measured for the Chinese (43.6%). An over-representation was recorded for 64 of the 67 origins with at least 200 representatives in the sample.

The very low proportion of Japanese born in the first trimester (16.2%) is also the result of a relative age effect. Indeed, in Japan, youth categories start on April 1st. In England, players born in the first trimester are just slightly over-represented (27.1%) insofar as the reference date to define age categories is September 1st.

Issue number 344 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post lists the 100 footballers worldwide who did not yet celebrate their 20th birthday and gained the most experience in official senior matches over the course of the year (minutes weighted by sporting strength of employer clubs or competitions played). The FC Barcelona’s gem Pedri González is clearly at the top of the table ahead of Manchester United’s Mason Greenwood and Ajax’s Ryan Gravenberch.

The Brazilian midfielder Matheus Martinelli (4th) is the best-ranked teenager playing outside of Europe, ahead of the 2003-born Uruguayan Fabricio Díaz from Liverpool Montevideo (7th) and his teammate at Fluminense Lucas Calegari (11th). Apart from Díaz, two other footballers born in 2003 are in the top 10 positions of the rankings: the Englishman Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund) and the German Florian Wirtz (Bayer Leverkusen).

The Paraguayan Julio Enciso (Club Libertad) is the only footballer born in 2004 in the top 100 list. With 22 goals in official senior games in 2021, Benjamin Šeško (Salzburg and Liefering) is the top scorer among players listed. The Slovenian striker outranks the Czech national A-team player Adam Hložek (Sparta Praha), the Uruguayan Matías Arezo (River Plate Montevideo) and the German with Nigerian descent Karim Adeyemi (Salzburg).

With the start of a new and exciting season, the CIES Football Observatory is delighted to disclose some of the exclusive player physical data produced by our fresh partners SkillCorner. The French company has developed a unique and automated approach to track players from any football broadcast, whilst generating physical data and continuous XY tracking via specialised algorithms. With over 40 competitions covered worldwide, they position themselves as leaders in the market.

Issue number 343 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 28 competitions according to the percentage of high intensity runs (>19.8 km/h) out of the total distance covered by players. The data refer to the last completed season. The English Premier League tops the table ahead of the Polish Ekstraklasa and the Spanish Liga. Conversely, the MLS, the Scottish Premiership and the Brazilian Serie A are at the bottom of the rankings.

At club level, Leeds United stands out with almost one tenth of the overall distance ran in high intensity. For the other four major European competitions, the greatest proportions were recorded for Athletic Club in Spain, Olympique Lyonnais in France, Juventus in Italy and Wolfsburg in Germany. With regard to overall distance covered, the leaders are Barcelona, Napoli, Leeds United (again), Hoffenheim and Angers.

The 66th CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report studies the changes occurred during the past five years in ten of the principal women’s leagues worldwide from the aspect of the players’ age, the percentage of expatriate footballers, as well as that of full international players. It notably shows the growing influence of the major European men’s clubs in the sphere of women’s football.

The fresh capital invested has notably stimulated the international mobility of women footballers. In the ten leagues studied, the percentage of expatriates has increased from 21.6% in 2017 to a record 33.0% in 2021. The increasing dominance of the traditionally men’s clubs in women’s football is clearly visible when looking at teams with the greatest number of full internationals. In the first 15 places are 14 teams whose male counterparts play in the five major European leagues.

The development of women’s football in Europe has encouraged more and more players from the best women’s football nation, the United States, to emigrate. In June 2021, with 87 citizens abroad in the championships studied, the United States were by far the most represented expatriate origin, ahead of Sweden (39 players) and Canada (37 players).

How much did players selected for the upcoming Euro 2021 play since the COVID break in 2020? Issue number 342 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks the footballers according to minutes played in official games for both clubs and national teams (A-teams and U21) since the 16th May 2020. With 6,472 minutes and 81 matches, Manchester United’s and Portugal Bruno Fernandes heads the table.

Manchester United’s and England centre back Harry Maguire ranks second (6’449 minutes, 72 official games) ahead of Milan AC’s and Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma (6’420 minutes, 71 matches). Four other goalkeepers are in the top 10 (Kasper Schmeichel, Hugo Lloris, Manuel Neuer and Thibaut Courtois), alongside Rúben Dias (Manchester City and Portugal), Jules Koundé (Sevilla and France), as well as Andrew Robertson (Liverpool and Scotland).

Per national team, the three top values of minutes per player were recorded for England (4,442), Portugal (4,258) and Germany (4’214). At the opposite end, we find North Macedonia (2,595), Wales (2’704) and Slovakia (2,738). With only 209 minutes in official games since the COVID break, the 19-year-old Welshman Rubin Colwill from Cardiff City played the least minutes among all footballers selected for the Euro 2021.

Three English talents are at the top of the biannual ranking of the greatest estimated transfer values for big-5 league players. According to the CIES Football Observatory algorithm, €190 million should be proposed to eventually convince Manchester City releasing Phil Foden. Two Manchester United’s players complete the podium: Mason Greenwood (€178 M) and the former leader Marcus Rashford (€159 M). The top 100 is available in the 341st Weekly Post.

Erling Haaland has the top estimated transfer value for players outside of the English Premier League. With respect to fees paid in the past, an investment of €155 M would be necessary to sign the Norwegian striker. With only one year of contract remaining, Kylian Mbappé (€118 M) is only 12th. Only three of the 20 big-5 league footballers with an estimated transfer value of more than €100 M are over 25 years of age: Bruno Fernandes, Timo Werner and Bernardo Silva.

Ederson Moraes (€62M) has the greatest estimated value for goalkeepers. His teammate at Manchester City Ruben Días (€114 M) tops the table for centre backs. Alphonso Davies (€131 M) from Bayern Munich is at the top for full backs and no other defensive midfielder has an estimated value as high as Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong (€138 M). Transfer value intervals for all big-5 league footballers are available on the CIES Football Observatory website.

National teams with players active in the most competitive clubs have greater chances to win trophies. Issue number 340 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post compares selections qualified from the perspective of the average sporting level of the teams of employment of players in squads. France tops the table ahead of Germany and Spain.

The Post also presents the average number of domestic league minutes played since September 1st 2020 by footballers from the 24 teams qualified. The maximal value was recorded for players of the English team (2,496 minutes), while the lowest one was measured for Ukraine (on average only 1,390 domestic league minutes per player).

With an average age of 24.9 years on June 1st, Turkey is the youngest team. It outranks England (25.2 years) and Wales (25.5 years). At the opposite end we find Sweden (29.2 years), followed by Belgium (29.1 years) and Slovakia (28.2 years). Born on the 16th October 2003, the Polish Kacper Kozlowski is the youngest player, while the Dutch goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg (22.09.1982) is the oldest.

With the five major European leagues ended, issue number 339 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the best line-ups for each championship. Players were selected according to the CIES performance index developed using data from OptaPro. Only footballers fielded for at least two thirds of domestic league minutes were included in the line-ups.

The formation selected for the English Premier League is a 4-2-1-3, with Bruno Fernandes as an attacking midfielder behind Harry Kane and besides Raheem Sterling and Mason Mount. The defense is made up of three Manchester City players (Ederson Moraes, Rubén Dias and João Cancelo), plus Victor Lindelöf and Andrew Robertson, with Rodri Hernández and Granit Xhaka as holding midfielders.

Some outstanding but not yet very known players are included in the line-ups for the remaining leagues. We notably find Ridle Baku (Wolfsburg) as right full-back in the German Bundesliga’s best 11, Aurélien Tchouaméni (Monaco), Farid Boulaya (Metz) and Romain Faivre (Stade Brestois) in the French Ligue 1 selection, Domenico Berardi (Sassuolo) in Italy and Javi Galan (Huesca) in Spain.

How frequently are teams fouling their opponents across Europe? Issue number 338 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post answers this question using the data provided by In Stat. At the level of the five major European leagues, the lowest foul frequency was measured for Arsenal (one foul every 10’44”), while Getafe is at the bottom end of the table (one foul every 5’44”).

Apart from Getafe, the highest foul frequency per big-5 league was measured for Hellas Verona (5’54”), FSV Mainz (6’30”), AS St-Etienne (7’10”) and Fulham FC (7’48”). Conversely, apart from Arsenal, the following teams committed the least fouls per minute: FC Barcelona (10’29”), Bayern Munich (10’19”), SSC Napoli (9’37”) and Nîmes Olympique (9’13”).

Out of all the 30 leagues surveyed, the extreme values were measured for FC Zenit (one foul every 12’34”) at one end and for two Greek teams at the other: PAS Giannina and Volos NFC (one foul every 4’51”). Eleven Greek top division clubs are among the 20 ones committing the most fouls per minute. Conversely, eight Russian teams are among the 20 with the lowest foul frequency.

The CIES Football Observatory just disclosed a report analysing the presence of expatriate footballers in 145 leagues from 96 national associations worldwide. With 1,287 players abroad, Brazil tops the rankings for exporting countries. However, while the number of Brazilians went down by 14 compared to 2020, that of the second most represented nation abroad, France, increased by 124 to reach a new record high of 946.

On the 1st of May 2021, despite the pandemic, the number of expatriates grew by almost 5% in comparison to the same date in 2020: from 13,025 to 13,664. This increase in difficult circumstances confirms that the internationalisation of the footballers’ labour market is a well-established process. Expatriates represent 21.3% of players surveyed: from 26.4% in the domestic leagues of UEFA member associations down to only 8.9% in those of the CONMEBOL.

Overall, more than a fifth of expatriate players originate from Brazil, France and Argentina (21.4%). If we take the number of expatriates in comparison to the population resident in the country of origin, Iceland tops the rankings. There is one expatriate Icelandic footballer for every 5,584 inhabitants of the island. Montenegro is second (one expatriate for every 6,759 inhabitants), ahead of Croatia (10,792), Uruguay (11,889) and Serbia (15,742).

Access the Report for free! More exclusive data on the CIES Football Observatory’s Atlas of Migration.