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.