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.

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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.