The CIES Football Observatory research team has developed an exclusive approach to measure the experience capital of footballers according to their playing time and the level of matches played. Issue number 270 of the Weekly Post presents the 50 highest figures worldwide for players born in 2000, as well as the top 50 for footballers born in or after 2001.

For players born in 2000, the Englishman Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund) outranks his countryman Ryan Sessegnon (Tottenham) and the Dutchman Kik Pierie (AFC Ajax). The second highest figure outside of the big-5 European leagues was measured for the Danish Mikkel Damsgaard (Nordsjaelland), while that for footballers playing outside of Europe was recorded for the Venezuelan Cristian Casséres (New York Red Bulls).

Rodrygo Goes (Real Madrid) heads the table for players born in or after 2001. The Brazilian prodigy ranks in the top 10 also by considering footballers born in 2000: 8th. The Paraguayan Fernando Cardozo (Boavista) is the second most experienced U19 player, while at third position is a 2002-born footballer: Adam Hložek (Sparta Praha). The youngest player in the lists is the 16-year-old midfielder Daniel Leyva (Seattle Sounders & Tacoma Defiance).

The 48th Monthly Report of the CIES Football Observatory analyses the evolution of the number and characteristics of footballers having played on loan for teams of the five major European championships during the last decade. It shows that clubs from these leagues take more and more players on loan: from 2.62 per club and season between 2009 and 2014, up to 3.09 between 2014 and 2019 (+18%). In 2018/2019, footballers on loan played a record number of minutes in the big-5: 11.5%.

This evolution is notably explained by the tendency of wealthy teams (Manchester City, Chelsea, Juventus, etc.) to put under contract an increasing number of footballers with a sufficient sporting level to play in the major European leagues. This puts other clubs in a greater state of dependency when making up their squads, thus increasing their likelihood to take players on loan.

The study also shows that loans constitute in most of the cases a step towards a definitive departure. Indeed, only 29.6% of footballers lent to big-5 league clubs between 2009/10 and 2018/19 return to their owner team at the end of the loan period. In 27% of the occurrences, they were loaned again, while in the remaining 43.4% of cases they were transferred on a permanent basis to another team.

Regulation makes sense in avoiding the misuse of loan strategies orientated not towards a legitimate sporting logic to develop the potential of a young player on which the loaning team really counts, but rather towards an economic logic that aims to generate profits from the transfer market or a political logic aiming at exercising undue influence on rival clubs. In order to be effective, these measures should be implemented in parallel to the regulation of the questions of buy-back options (recompra) and the multi-ownership of clubs.

The partnership with the football data company InStat allows the CIES Football Observatory to present exclusive analysis on the technical performance of teams from 35 European competitions. Issue number 269 of the Weekly Post highlights domestic league matches during which a team had the highest percentage of ball possession (calculated out of effective playing time). The record figure for current season was measured for Fulham against Millwall on the 21st August: 78.7%.

The loss with the highest possession was recorded for Tottenham against Newcastle: 74.8% on the 25th August (0-1). Apart from Fulham and Tottenham, Shakhtar Donetsk (in two away matches), Paris St-Germain, Celtic FC, Borussia Dortmund, Ludogorets Razgrad, FK Partizan (also in a game away) and RB Salzburg are in the top ten positions of the rankings.

The Weekly Post presents the top 10 possession figures for each of the 35 championships analysed. In addition, the freshly updated CIES & InStat Performance Atlas presents additional data on six key technical indicators referring to defence, possession and attack. By clicking on teams, the tool allows users accessing exclusive statistics for up to the last 10 domestic league matches played. Please contact us for more information about the wide array of possibilities offered by subscribing to InStat.

Issue number 268 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the percentage of domestic league minutes played by footballers signed at the start of the season for all of the big-5 league clubs. Last Champions League finalists, Tottenham (5.0%) and Liverpool (8.3%), as well as Manchester City (7.7%), are among the 14 teams where new recruits played less than one tenth of minutes.

The figures for Manchester United and Chelsea are much higher: 25.8% and 33.6% respectively. Among Champions League participants, only LOSC Lille fielded new signings for a greater percentage of minutes than Chelsea: 42.5%. The highest proportion in the big-5 was measured for Fiorentina (69.5%), a club recently taken over by a new wealthy owner.

The most stable teams are to be found in the Premier League, where new recruits played so far only 15.7% of minutes (maximum 50.4% at Aston Villa). At the opposite end of the table is the Italian Serie A: 29.6% (minimum 5.5% for Atalanta). The averages measured in the other three leagues of the big-5 are 22.7% for Bundesliga, 24.0% for the Liga (maximum 54.3% for Sevilla) and 26.7% for Ligue 1.

Issue number 267 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses the exclusive data produced by our partners InStat by ranking Champions League teams according to the average length of the passes achieved in domestic league games so far this season. Past edition semi-finalists Ajax have the lowest figure (15.96 meters), ahead of Paris St-Germain (16.17) and Barcelona (16.56).

At the opposite end of the table are Czech champions Slavia Praha with an average length of 19.82 meters (+24% compared to Ajax). Title holder Liverpool has so far achieved the fourth longest passes among group stage participants: 19.45 meters on average. This figure is significantly higher than for their main Premier League rivals Manchester City (17.39).

The majority of high-profile teams are among those making the shortest passes. Apart from Liverpool, the only recent Champions League finalist with an average length of passes greater than 18 meters is Atlético Madrid. Diego Simeone’s team achieved the third lowest number of passes per game (379), while Lucien Favre’s Borussia Dortmund made the most (735).

For the first time in history, a football club invested more than one billion euro in transfer indemnities to assemble its squad: Manchester City. Following last summer transfer window, two clubs are close to this figure: Paris St-Germain (€913 million) and Real Madrid (€902 million). Issue number 266 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the data for all teams in the big-5.

The gap between the costliest and cheapest squad per league is x148 in the Liga (Real Madrid vs Mallorca), x114 in the Ligue 1 (Paris St-Germain vs Nîmes), x85 in the Bundesliga (Bayern vs Paderborn), x63 in the Serie A (Juventus vs Lecce) and x32 in the Premier League (Manchester City vs Norwich). This reflects the great financial divides in European football.

The average transfer expenditure to sign current squad members per league is €345 M in the Premier League, €167 M in both the Liga and the Serie A, €124 M in the Bundesliga and €118 M in the Ligue 1. More exclusive financial analysis on the big-5 league transfer market is available in the 47th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report.