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!