Issue number 185 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the top 100 list of the best performing big-5 league players in the area of dribbling. Middlesbrough’s Adama Traoré outranks Eden Hazard (Chelsea) and Allan Saint-Maximin (Bastia). Neymar, Lionel Messi and Alexis Sánchez also are in the top 10 positions of the rankings.

The dribbling index is calculated by dividing the number of dribbles attempted by the percentage of successful ones. This allows us taking into account dribbling skills from both a quantitative and a qualitative perspective. In quantitative terms, the big-5 league player who attempted the most dribbles so far is Barcelona’s Neymar (269), ahead of Wilfried Zaha (Crystal Palace) and Felipe Anderson (Lazio).

The best ratio of successful dribbles among players in the top 100 list was recorded for OGC Nice’s midfielder Wylan Cyprien (87%). At second position is another French Ligue 1 player: Marco Verratti (Paris St-Germain). The best ratio for players who attempted more than 100 dribbles was observed for Eden Hazard: 75%.

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The CIES Football Observatory research team is happy to inform you that the Digital Atlas was updated. It now takes into account domestic league games played during the last six months. This exclusive tool allows you to compare the squad make-up of teams in 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations.

In addition, the new top 100 lists of the teams having fielded club-trained players for the highest percentage of minutes, the most stable line-ups, as well as the youngest ones are now available. The rankings refer both to the 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations and the five major European championships (Spanish Liga, English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A and French Ligue 1).

We hope that you will enjoy these tools. Any feedback is welcome. We also kindly invite you to follow us on Twitter. Thank you for your interest!

The CIES Football Observatory published today the 24th edition of its Monthly Report. The study focuses on the demographic evolution of the big-5 European leagues since the start of the 2009/10 season. It notably shows that the percentage of minutes played by club-trained footballers in the English Premier League reached a new record low during the current season (6.1%).

The Report also highlights the increase in the playing time of expatriate footballers at the level of the five major European championships. Between 2009 and 2017, the percentage of minutes played by expatriates went up from 44.4% to 48.2%. A new record high was measured in January 2017: 48.7%. If this trend continues, the symbolic 50% threshold will be reached soon.

Today, expatriates already play the majority of minutes in the English Premier League and the Italian Serie A. In the two cases, we are close to record values. The Serie A also differentiates itself from the other leagues with regard to the extent of the increase measured since the 2009/10 season. On the other hand, the German Bundesliga is the only championship where the current value is lower than that recorded at the beginning of the period investigated.

The employment level of young players also varies considerably according to league. During the period studied, the French Ligue 1 overtook the German Bundesliga to become the competition where teams have the most confidence in U21 players. At the other extreme, the English Premier League overtook the Italian Serie A as the league in which U21 footballers have the least amount of playing time.

During the last six months, the percentage of domestic league minutes played by U21 footballers was 5.2% for the Premier League, 10.1% for the Serie A, 11.1% for the Liga, 13.3% for the Bundesliga and 15.7% for the Ligue 1. In England, the current value is very close to the record low measured in August 2013. In Italy, however, the record high measured in January 2017 could be beaten again by the end of the season.

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The CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post n° 184 presents the percentage of matches ended with a three-goal gap or over for 31 top division European leagues, as well as UEFA’s Champions League and Europa League. The analysis shows that the Champions League is among the most unbalanced competitions.

From the group stage up until now, the goal gap for more than a fifth of Champions League matches was at least three (21.0%). This is the third highest figure among competitions surveyed after those recorded in the Cypriot (22.5%) and Austrian (21.5%) top divisions. However, the value measured in the Europa League is particularly low (13.5%).

The big-5 leagues are also in the first half of the most unbalanced competitions. This finding reflects the increasing wealth gaps between participating teams. To re-balance competitions, the only solution would be to improve the distribution of financial (TV rights) and human (transfer market) resources at both national and international level.

Issue number 183 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 31 top division European leagues according to goals scored since July 1st 2016. At the top of the table is the Swiss Super League (3.33 goals per game). The Russian Premier League finds itself at the opposite end of the spectrum (1.99).

At the level of the five major European championships, the figures vary from 2.90 goals per match in the Spanish Liga to 2.60 in the French Ligue 1. The English Premier League (2.84) ranks sixth (out of 31) at European level and second between the big-5 leagues.

Generally speaking, a negative correlation exists between the number of goals scored and the number of cards issued by referees (see Weekly Post n° 182). More goals equals to fewer cards. This finding confirms the existence of cultural differences in the way of approaching the matches according to country.

For the first time, issue number 182 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents data on cards issued by referees. The 31 top division European championships surveyed are ranked according to the average number of cards given per game. The Greek Super League heads the table (5.52), while the Norwegian Eliteserien is at the bottom of the rankings (2.93).

Southern and Eastern European countries are over-represented among those where the referees issue the most cards. On the contrary, in the majority of Northern and Western European countries, the number of cards is relatively low. These gaps reflect the existence of different cultures both from a player and a referee behaviour perspective.

Generally speaking, the number of yellow cards is correlated to that of red ones. The French Ligue 1 is an exception. At international level, French referees issue few yellow cards, but a lot of red ones. At the opposite end of the spectrum, in the English Premier League, the amount of red cards is very low compared to that of yellow cards.

Issue number 181 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post highlights the 100 clubs from 31 top division championships of UEFA member associations having on average fielded the oldest line ups in the domestic league matches played during the last six months. The most represented countries in the rankings are England and Turkey (10 clubs each), followed by Cyprus and Russia (9 teams).

At the top of the table is the Italian side Chievo Verona (32.1 years). The average age on the pitch of five other clubs was higher than 30 years: three from Cyprus (AEK Larnaca, Nea Salamis and Apollon Limassol), one from England (West Bromwich) and one from Greece (Kerkyra). The values per league are freely available online via the CIES Football Observatory Digital Atlas. This tool also allows users to access the data for all clubs in the leagues surveyed.

In addition, the CIES Football Observatory website presents the top 100 list of the youngest top division teams from the 31 UEFA member associations taken into account. The most represented country is the Netherlands (12 clubs), followed by Croatia (8), Germany and Slovakia (7 teams each). No English Premier League team is in the top 100 positions. The youngest team overall is the Slovakian side Senica (22.2 years).

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The studies carried out since 2005 by the CIES Football Observatory are not only geared towards the general public, but are also useful to actors in the game. The 23rd Monthly Report illustrates an approach that allows a professional football league to analyse on an objective basis its international positioning and influence in a positive way the strategic choices of the clubs that compose it.

The example chosen is that of the Swiss Football League. This choice is a result of the trust, built up over a number of years, that this institution has shown towards the CIES Football Observatory. This trust has led to the commissioning of several studies and research reports. These documents are available freely online in both French and German on the Swiss Football League website.

The Report notably highlights that in the current context of economic polarisation, the good health of the vast majority of clubs and leagues worldwide will depend on their ability join forces in their own interests. From the sporting point of view, the emphasis must be placed on improving the protection of the work of training, and, more generally, to increase the level of solidarity in the transfer system.

The first CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post was published in March 2012. To celebrate this birthday, we ranked the 54 clubs always present in the big-5 leagues during the last five years according to the number of players fielded in domestic league games. Italian side Genoa used the most players overall: 137! At the opposite end of the spectrum are Athletic Club Bilbao, Bayern Munich and Borussia Mönchengladbach (55 players).

Eight of the eleven teams always present in the big-5 who fielded more than 100 players in domestic league matches since March 2012 are Italian. This reflects the very speculative transfer market approach existing in Italy. The greatest figures in squad turnover per league were recorded at Genoa (137 players), Granada (129), Sunderland (103), Nice and Stade Rennais (91, including many players from the youth academy), as well as Werder Bremen (90).

Many well-structured and performing teams fielded the fewest players during the period analysed. Among them, we notably find Bayern Munich (55 players), Paris St-Germain (64), Real Madrid (64 too), Arsenal (65) and Barcelona (66). The Weekly Post also presents the footballer who played the most domestic league minutes during the last five years for each club taken into consideration. St-Etienne’s goalkeeper Stéphane Ruffier tops the table: 16,650 minutes.

Issue number 179 of the Weekly Post presents the best performing big-5 league players in the six areas of the game that make up the exclusive CIES Football Observatory approach for the technical analysis of performance. The data refers to the last 1,000 minutes played by each player in domestic league matches. Only footballers fielded for at least 360 minutes since January 1st are included.

Nicolás Otamendi (Manchester City) heads the table for rigour ahead of Marquinhos (Paris St-Germain) and Javi Martínez (Bayern Munich). In the area of recovery, Sead Kolašinac (Schalke 04) outranks teammate Benedikt Höwedes, Xabi Alonso (Bayern Munich) and Omar Mascarell (Eintracht Frankfurt). Three players top the distribution rankings: Thiago Motta (Paris St-Germain), Jorginho and Marek Hamšík (both Naples).

Two young talents have the highest possible score for take on: Allan Saint-Maximin (Bastia, on loan from Monaco) and Adama Traoré (Middlesbrough). Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City) and Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) head the tables for chance creation and shooting.

Seven players are in the top 10 rankings in two different areas: Xabi Alonso, Ander Herrera and Arturo Vidal in recovery and distribution; Toni Kroos in distribution and chance creation; Alejandro Gómez and Neymar in take on and chance creation; as well as Lionel Messi in both chance creation and shooting.

The profile of all big-5 league players is available here.

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Issue number 178 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents big-5 league players who have been for the longest consecutive period in the first team squad of their current club. Only footballers who have participated in domestic league matches during the ongoing season are taken into account.

Francesco Totti heads the overall table. The Italian world champion has been in Roma’s first team squad for 24 consecutive years (since 1993)! At second position is Chelsea’s centre back John Terry (18.5 years), followed by Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and Caen’s defensive midfielder Nicolas Seube (both 15.5 years).

The average number of consecutive seasons in the employer club of the most loyal player per team varies between 8.6 years in the German Bundesliga and 7.7 years in the French Ligue 1. Olympique de Marseille is a very specific case as the lost loyal players fielded in domestic league games this season are present in the first team squad since 1.5 years only!

Issue number 177 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the list of footballers trained by clubs qualified for the Champions League last 16 round playing in these teams. The number of footballers trained varies between 11 for Barcelona to only one for Manchester City and Napoli.

Among the 11 players trained by Barcelona, six play for the Catalan side. The remaining ones play for five different clubs still competing in the Champions League: Benfica (Grimaldo), Dortmund (Bartra), Napoli (Reina), Bayern (Thiago Alcântara) and Paris St-Germain (Thiago Motta). The youngest Barcelona’s product, Rafinha, is already aged 24. This tends to confirm the decline of La Masia as underlined in issue number 163 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post.

Four Champions League clubs have trained less than three players under contract with teams participating in the last 16 round: Leicester (King, Chilwell), Juventus (Marchisio, Kean), Manchester City (Schmeichel) and Napoli (Insigne). For these teams, the training and promotion of players from the youth academy is clearly not a priority.

Goalkeepers occupy a particular status in football teams. The qualities needed to play in this position are very different from those required from outfield footballers. Issue number 22 of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report compares goalkeeper characteristics with those of footballers playing in other positions.

The study confirms the specificity of the position of goalkeeper based upon criteria taken into account: height, age, origin and mobility. From the point of view of height, clubs are more and more reticent to promote goalkeepers under 190cm. This observation holds particularly in England and Germany, where the average height of goalkeepers is already over 190cm.

Regarding age, the analysis reveals the greater longevity of goalkeepers. The importance given to experience is particularly striking in England and Italy. In both cases, keepers are on average aged over 29 years. In all leagues surveyed, the regular goalkeepers are significantly older than the reserve ones.

From the standpoint of origin, the Report shows that the labour market for goalkeepers is much less international than that of outfield players. The difference is particularly noteworthy with respect to forwards. The study also indicates that the gap in the percentage of expatriates between goalies and outfielders tends to increase.

Finally, the analysis highlights the greater stability of goalkeepers. Their average length of stay in their employer club is much longer than for outfielders. In this case too, the biggest difference was observed in comparison to forwards. The latter are the most mobile in the football players’ labour market.

What is the common feature between Dele Alli, Renato Sanches, Christian Pulisic and Gianluigi Donnarumma? They are all the most experienced players in their age group among those under contract with clubs of 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations. Issue number 176 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the top 20 list in the experience rankings for players born in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.

Experience refers to games played in adult championships since the start of the career. Each match is weighted according to an exclusive classification method that takes into account the performance of national association representatives in European club competitions, the division of employer clubs at national level and results achieved by the latter during the semester in which matches were played. The 14th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report provides more information.

According to this method, Dele Alli (Tottenham) tops the experience rankings for players born in 1996 ahead of Julian Brandt (Bayer Leverkusen) and Timo Werner (RB Leipzig). Renato Sanches (Bayern Munich) and Rúben Neves (Porto) heads the table for 1997-born footballers, while Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund) and Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan) top the rankings for players born in 1998 and 1999. They are all destined for greatness.

Issue number 175 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents a networked representation of fee paying deals having involved big-5 league teams during the last transfer window. Clubs in the five major European championships have invested a record amount of 742 million € to sign new players. The previous record, 523 million €, was established in 2011.

Globally, 142 players have been transferred for money from and/or to big-5 league clubs for a total figure of 921 M €. Deals internal to the five major championships represented 48.8% of the total volume of transactions (450 M €). The remaining money is subdivised into the recruitment of players from clubs outside the big-5 (292 M €) and the selling of players to non big-5 league clubs (179 M €), in particular to China (120 M €).

The highest volume of transactions concerned English Premier League clubs (443 M €). At second position is the French Ligue 1 (225 M €), while the Spanish Liga is at the bottom of the table (64 M €). Surprisingly, the commercial balance for the Premier League is positive (+51 M € taking into account add-ons but not including the signing of Gabriel Jesus by Manchester City concluded since last summer) and very negative for the Ligue 1 (-150 M € following the international recruitment of players such as Draxler, Guedes, Payet or Depay).

Issue number 174 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents players who made their debut in the professional game after July 1st 2016 fielded during the current season in domestic league matches by a big-5 league club. The analysis notably highlights the key role played by the French top division in the promotion of young talents.

The French Ligue 1 holds record figures for both the number of debutants (29) and total domestic league minutes played (11,129). At the opposite end of the spectrum is the English Premier League: 12 debutants and 907 minutes. At club level, the record figures were observed at Montpellier, Metz, Toulouse and Espanyol for the number of debutants (4), as well as at Nice for minutes played (2,245).

The most fielded debutants per league are Malang Sarr (Nice) in France (1,964 minutes), Aarón Martín (Espanyol) in Spain (1,147 minutes), Pol Lirola (Sassuolo) in Italy (1,022 minutes), Ousman Manneh (Werder) in Germany (488 minutes) and Harry Winks (Tottenham) in England (357 minutes).

Issue number 173 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the gap between the value of squads and transfer fee expenditure to assemble them. This analysis allows us highlighting the most and least efficient clubs from a player economic valorisation perspective. For the vast majority of teams, the gap is positive. Indeed, the study does not take into account costs that the replacement of squad members would generate.

At the top of the table is Barcelona. This is mainly due to the great economic valorisation of Lionel Messi (from 0 € as a youth academy product to the current estimated transfer value of 170.5 M €) and Neymar (from 87 to 246.8 M €). In the top positions of the rankings mainly are well performing teams focusing on the training and/or long term recruitment of young talents. Second-ranked club Tottenham Hotspur is the perfect illustration of this strategy.

Conversely, at the bottom of the table are above all clubs having recently achieved poor results with respect to transfer fee investments in assembling the squad such as Hamburg, Wolfsburg, Manchester United, Crystal Palace, Valencia and Schalke 04. Paris St-Germain’s last position is rather due to expensive recruitments and the lower Ligue 1 status compared to the four other major European leagues.

Neymar is by far the big-5 league player with the highest transfer value. The Brazilian prodigy outranks Lionel Messi and Paul Pogba. Data presented in issue number 172 of the Weekly Post is computed by means of the exclusive CIES Football Observatory transfer value algorithm.

Since 2012, the CIES Football Observatory research team has developed a unique approach to estimate on a scientific basis the transfer value of professional football players. The statistical model through which fair prices are calculated includes multiple variables on player performance (minutes, goals, etc.) and characteristics (age, contract, etc.), as well as data on employer clubs and potential recruiting ones.

The big-5 league player with the highest estimated transfer value is Neymar: 246.8 million €. The Barcelona’s forward is clearly ahead teammate Lionel Messi (170.5 M €) and Paul Pogba (155.3 M €). Ten players have an estimated value of more than 100 M €. In the top 100 list are 42 players from the English Premier League.

The highest values per position were recorded for Jan Oblak among goalkeepers (59.8 M €), Raphaël Varane among centre backs (64 M €), Héctor Bellerín among full backs (70.3 M €), Paul Pogba among central midfielders (155.3 M €), Dele Alli among attacking midfielders (110.5 M €) and Neymar among forwards (246.8 M €).

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The 21st Monthly Report of the CIES Football Observatory presents a predictive analysis of the final rankings of the big-5 European leagues. The prediction is based on a multivariate statistical model taking into account the offensive and defensive performances of big-5 league teams until the 31st December 2016, as well as the level of their grip on the game.

The analysis highlights that four out of the five current leaders are the most likely champions: Chelsea in the English Premier League, Real Madrid in the Spanish Liga, Bayern Munich in the German Bundesliga and Juventus in the Italian Serie A. However, in the French Ligue 1, Monaco should overtake Paris St-Germain and Nice.

According to our approach, despite recent wins, Manchester United won’t be able to rank higher than sixth. Liverpool will finish second ahead of Manchester City and Arsenal. In Germany, Hamburg will be relegated for the first time in its history. In Italy, Inter will only rank fifth, while Milan AC will downgrade to seventh position. Let’s us wait a few months to see how accurate these predictions will prove to be.

Year after year, the CIES Football Observatory research team has developed a powerful approach for the technical analysis of player performance. On the basis of this methodology, issue number 171 of the Weekly Post presents the 10 best performing big-5 league players per position. Cristiano Ronaldo heads the table for forwards ahead of Lionel Messi.

To be eligible, a player must have been fielded for at least 900 domestic league minutes so far. Moreover, rankings make the distinction between full international players and footballers who did not yet play for a national A-team. The latter rankings allows us highlighting the top level performances of many players who are still relatively unknown.

The highest score overall was recorded for Real Madrid’s striker Cristiano Ronaldo: 94. This figure is one point higher than that measured for Barcelona’s Lionel Messi. In other positions, the best performing players so far have been Manuel Neuer and Stéphane Ruffier among goalkeepers, Mats Hummels among centre backs, Alex Sandro among full backs, Thiago Alcântara and Paul Pogba among central midfielders, as well as Kevin de Bruyne and Philippe Coutinho among attacking midfielders.

The highest score overall for non full internationals was observed for Marcos Alonso (Chelsea) and Jonathan Viera (Las Palmas): 87. The youngest footballers in the top 10 lists for players yet to be selected for national A-teams are Yann Karamoh (Caen), born in 1998, Allan Saint-Maximin (Bastia, on loan from Monaco) and Jesús Vallejo (Eintracht Frankfurt, on loan from Real Madrid), both born in 1997.

Issue number 170 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the number of players fielded in domestic league matches from July 1st 2016 onwards by clubs in 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations. The record values were observed for the Finnish champions Mariehamn (17 players) and the Croatian side RNK Split (37 players).

At big-5 league level, the teams having fielded the most players are not in the top positions of the table in their respective league: Werder Bremen (30 players, 14th), Osasuna (29, 20th) or Lorient (28, 20th). Conversely, Chelsea (1st), Bayern Munich (1st), RB Leipzig (2nd) and Nice (1st) are among the clubs having used the least footballers.

This analysis shows that quality is the key criterion to assemble successful squads. It also highlights that too much turnover does not allow teams to significantly improve their performance standards. The data for all teams in the 31 top division leagues surveyed are available in the CIES Football Observatory Digital Atlas.

We wish you a happy new year, with plenty of exciting football matches and statistics!

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Issue number 20 of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report investigates the international mobility of minors in football. It reveals that the number of players who left their country before to turn 18 has reached a new record high in 2016. English clubs are by far the most active in the international recruitment of minors.

Almost 600 footballers having moved abroad before the age of 18 currently play in 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations. For almost one third of them, the first foreign destination was England. The second biggest importing country for minor players is Italy. In terms of origins, the most represented nations are Belgium, Sweden, France, Hungary and Austria.

As fully developed in the book Slow foot (only available in French), the Report indicates that “players having left their country under the age of 18 have, on average, less rewarding careers than footballers who left later with more experience under their belt”. The authors claim that “the premature international migration of inexperienced players poses serious risks for both the footballers concerned and the teams recruiting them”.

According to Drs. Raffaele Poli, Loïc Ravenel and Roger Besson, “unfortunately, in spite of all sporting logic, and in an overly speculative context where numerous actors make their living out of player transfers, the international flow of minors increases with each year”. Far from being solved, the issue of the transfers of minors in professional football will certainly still receive considerable attention in the years to come.

Read the Report here

Issue number 169 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post highlights clubs whose footballers have played the most minutes in national A-team matches in 2016. At the top of the table is Juventus. Throughout the year, twenty-one players from the Italian team have taken part in 157 international matches for a total of 12,454 minutes.

In the top three positions of the rankings also are Tottenham Hotspur (19 players, 155 matches, 12,009 minutes) and Barcelona (20 players, 134 matches, 10,802 minutes). Six English clubs are in the top ten positions: Tottenham (2nd), Arsenal (4th), Manchester United (6th), Manchester City (8th), Southampton (9th) and Chelsea (10th).

The best ranked team outside the big-5 European leagues is Fenerbahçe: 13th (18 players, 94 matches, 7,011 minutes). The Thai club Muang Thong United occupies the highest position for a team outside UEFA member countries: 17th (10 players, 84 matches, 6,611 minutes). Teams from 42 associations are to be found in the top 100.

Issue number 168 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 footballers born on or after January 1st 1997 who played so far the highest percentage of minutes in 31 top division European leagues. Among the four players fielded for 100% of minutes are three goalkeepers: Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan), Alban Lafont (Toulouse) and Adam Jakubech (Spartak Trnava).

The only outfield footballer who played all minutes between July 1st and November 30th is the Dutch centre back Justin Hoogma (Heracles). The top ranked big-5 league outfield centre back is another very promising centre back: Malang Sarr (Nice). The most represented leagues in the top 100 are the Slovakian (9 players), the Dutch (8 players) and the French ones (7 players).

In addition to Lafont, Donnarumma and Sarr, only two other players born in 1999 are in the top 100 of the rankings: Petko Hristov (Slavia Sofia) and Alexander Isak (AIK Solna). In addition to Hoogma, 21 other footballers born in 1998 are among the 100 most fielded U20 players. The remaining footballers are born in 1997.

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The CIES Football Observatory is proud to disclose the brand new version of its exclusive Digital Atlas on the composition of squads in 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations. All the data is available for free.

The Digital Atlas allows football passionate to compare the profile of teams throughout Europe according to six indicators: age, height, stability, expatriates, club-trained players and turnover. The data refers to domestic league matches played during the last six months. It will be updated on a monthly basis.

The CIES Football Observatory website also presents the rankings of the European top division clubs having on average fielded the youngest players, the most stable line-ups and the most club-trained footballers. For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

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Brazil tops the list of countries with the most expatriates in 31 top division championships of UEFA member associations. France heads the table at big-5 league level. All data is available in issue number 167 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post.

In total, 469 Brazilians are currently playing in the 31 leagues surveyed. France is the second biggest exporting country (312 players). Another nation with a very competitive training system ranks third: Spain (201 players). Two other associations have more than 150 expatriate footballers in the 31 top division championships analysed: Serbia (189 players) and Argentina (168).

Issue number 167 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post also presents the rankings of associations exporting the most players to the five major European championships. France (116 players) outranks Brazil (114), Argentina (97), Spain (66), Belgium (48) and Switzerland (48). All these countries are in a favourable position to assemble very competitive national team squads.

Issue number 166 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks European teams according to the average age of line-ups fielded in domestic league matches since July 1st 2016. Danish side Nordsjælland heads the table at the level of 31 top division European leagues (22.1 years), while Toulouse tops the big-5 league rankings (23.4 years).

Based in Farum, 20 km from Copenhagen, Nordsjælland was recently bought by a group of investors also involved in the running of a football academy in Ghana, Right to Dream. They are currently ranked 8th in the Danish Superliga. In the top three of the European rankings also are Lokomotiva Zagreb (CRO) and Senica (SVK).

In the top eleven positions of the big-5 league rankings are only French and German clubs. Among them notably are the two clubs currently heading the Ligue 1 and Bundesliga tables: OGC Nice (2nd) and RB Leipzig (4th). The youngest Italian team, Milan AC, is 12th. Two English Premier League clubs are in the top 20 positions of the rankings: Tottenham (15th) and Liverpool (18th).

Henceforth, the rankings will be updated every month by taking into account domestic league matches played during the six previous months. The data for the 100 top-ranked clubs at European level and the figures for all big-5 league teams are already available on the CIES Football Observatory website. Please spread the word!

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The CIES Football Observatory is happy in announcing the launching of its official Twitter account. @CIES_Football will allow us to share with our followers some exclusive information related to our three main research areas: football players’ labour market, transfer value estimates and technical analysis of player performance.

We warmly invite you to join us on this media and spread the word to anyone potentially interested. Thank you for informing your friends or colleagues also on the possibility to receive our news by providing a valid email address here. Your interest is the best reward for the work carried out since more than 10 years!

Issue number 165 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses the stability of squads in 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations. The championships surveyed are compared according to the percentage of players who joined the first team squad of their employer team after January 1st 2016.

The record high for new players per club was recorded in Bulgaria: 64% of squad members. At the opposite end of the table, the Austrian top division is the only league where the proportion of players present in the first team squad since less than one year is lower than one third: 31%. At big-5 league level, the figures vary between 36% in Germany and 45% in both Spain and Italy.

Southern and Eastern European leagues are over-represented among those with the most unstable squads. In eleven championships, more than half of players joined the first team squad of their employer club since less than one year. Among these leagues notably are the Portuguese (56% of new players) and Turkish ones (53%).

See also Monthly Report n° 19, Demographic Study of football in Europe

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The presence of club-trained footballers greatly varies throughout Europe. Issue number 164 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 31 top division championships of UEFA member associations according to the percentage of club-trained players in squads.

In three countries, footballers who have been for at least three seasons between 15 and 21 years of age in their employer club account for less than 10% of squad members: Turkey (6.9%), Portugal (9.6%) and Cyprus (9.6%). At the opposite end of the table, the percentage of club-trained players is over 30% in Slovakia (31.5%) and Ukraine (30.6%).

The lowest proportion among big-5 leagues was recorded in the English Premier League: 10.0%. Since 2012, this percentage has steadily decreased to reach a record low in the current season. Conversely, in the Spanish Liga, club-trained footballers account for almost one quarter of squads: 24.1%. The multiple trophies won by Spanish clubs in European club competitions suggest that the ability to field top level players from the youth academy provides a competitive advantage over rivals.

See also Monthly Report n° 19, Demographic Study of football in Europe

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The annual census carried out since 2009 by the CIES Football Observatory on the profile of players active in 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations confirms the decrease in the presence of club-trained players, the increase in that of expatriates and the growing squad instability throughout Europe. The main findings are presented in the 19th edition of the Monthly Report.

The study notably shows that the presence of club-trained players continues to decrease: from 23.0% in 2009 to 19.2% in 2016. This is the lowest value ever measured. In parallel, the level of expatriates has reached a new record in 2016: 38.7% (+3.9% since 2009). For the first time since our survey has been carried out, the percentage of expatriates is over twice that of club-trained players.

The greater international mobility of players brings with it a growing instability in squads. The average number of players recruited during the year among those present on the 1st October has increased from 9.1 in 2009 (36.7% of squads) to 10.7 in 2016 (43.9%). This is also a new record. The average length of stay of players in their employer club has never been as low as in 2016: 2.2 years.

The sample is made up of footballers present on the 1st October having played in domestic league matches during the current season or having taken part in adult championships during each of the two preceding ones. Second and third goalkeepers are taken into account even though they do not meet these criteria.

For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

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La Lettre hebdomadaire n° 163 de l’Observatoire du football CIES présente le classement annuel des clubs ayant formé le plus de joueurs. Real Madrid est en tête du classement pour les footballeurs du big-5. Aux deux premières places l’an passé, Barcelone et l’Olympique Lyonnais rétrogradent. Ajax a formé le plus de joueurs évoluant dans 31 championnats de première division européens.

En accord avec la définition de l’UEFA, les clubs formateurs des joueurs sont ceux qui les ont entraînés pendant au moins trois saisons entre l’âge de 15 et 21 ans. Les classements prennent en compte les footballeurs dans l’effectif de la première équipe ayant joué en championnat jusqu’au 1er octobre de la saison en cours ou ayant disputé des rencontres dans des championnats adultes lors de chacune des deux saisons précédentes.

Club formateur de 41 joueurs actuellement dans le big-5, Real Madrid devance Barcelone (37) et Manchester United (34). Trois clubs français sont présents dans le top 10 : Lyon (29), Monaco (22) et Rennes (22). Ajax est premier au niveau des joueurs actifs dans 31 championnats de première division européens. Le club néerlandais devance le leader de 2015 Partizan Belgrade et Dinamo Zagreb.

Les classements 2016

Classement 2015 pour les joueurs du big-5

Classement 2015 pour 31 ligues de première division européennes

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Issue number 163 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the annual list of the most productive training clubs. At the head of the rankings for big-5 league players is Real Madrid, while Dutch side Ajax tops the table for footballers in 31 top division European championships.

As per UEFA definition, the training clubs of players are teams having employed them for at least three seasons between the ages of 15 and 21. The list takes into account first team squad members having played in domestic league games until October 1st of the current season or in adult championships during each of the two previous ones.

Real Madrid trained the most footballers currently playing for big-5 league teams: 41. The Spanish side outranks the 2015 top-ranked team Barcelona (37) and Manchester United (34). Ajax heads the table for players in 31 top division European leagues, ahead of the 2015 top-ranked club Partizan Belgrade and Dinamo Zagreb.

2016 rankings

2015 rankings for big-5 league players

2015 rankings for 31 top division European leagues

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Real Madrid squad members were on average recruited at the age of 22.5 years. This is the lowest figure at big-5 league level. Issue number 162 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the data for the 98 clubs from the five major European championships. German and English teams are over-represented in the top positions of the rankings.

As developed in the 18th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report, the best clubs focus their recruitment on younger players than less competitive teams. In the top five positions of clubs whose transfer policy is the most centered on young footballers are four Champions League participating teams: Real Madrid, Leverkusen, Dortmund and Tottenham.

In the top ten positions are four German (Leipzig, Leverkusen, Dortmund, Mainz) and four English teams (Tottenham, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Manchester United). Conversely, no German club is among the ten big-5 league teams whose recruitment strategy focuses on the most seasoned players. Italian side Cagliari is at the bottom of the table.

Issue number 161 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post compares big-5 league teams according to the number of players in their current squad signed after January 1st 2016. The best performing teams recruited fewer footballers than the less competitive ones. German champions Bayern Munich only signed two players.

Among the eleven least active clubs on the transfer market are seven teams competing in the UEFA Champions League: Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Lyon, Leverkusen, Paris St-Germain, Tottenham and Atlético Madrid. Athletic Bilbao, Hertha Berlin, Manchester United and Real Sociedad also are in the top eleven positions of the rankings.

The 18th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report presents an in-depth analysis of the recruitment policies followed by clubs from the five major European championships. The study notably highlights that the most competitive teams focus on the fee paying transfer of young players with high potential and hold on to those who perform best over the long term.

Issue number 160 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the percentage of domestic league minutes played by national footballers since the start of the season. At the top of the table is Osasuna (97%), while Udinese is at the bottom (1%).

In the top ten rankings of the lowest figures are many competitive teams, such as Chelsea (16%), Manchester City (17%) and Arsenal (23%). In total, national footballers played less than 50% of minutes in 51 clubs out of 98. This proportion is 16 out of 20 in the English Premier League.

Everton is the only English team currently ranked in the top third of the Premier League table who fielded national players for more than half of minutes (52%). National footballers played 41% of domestic league minutes at both Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Transfer expenditure at the top of the football pyramid has significantly grown in recent years. Issue number 159 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses the sums spent in transfer fees by big-5 league teams to assemble their current squad. In football history, no club has invested as much as Manchester United this season to make up its roster: €718 million (+€185 million compared to last season).

The fees paid to assemble Manchester United’s squad vary from €110 million for new signing Paul Pogba to zero for a few players among whom Zlatan Ibrahimovi?. At second and third positions of the squad cost table are Real Madrid (€634 million, + €47 million with respect to 2015/16) and Manchester City (€611 million, + €78 million).

Generally speaking, the correlation between the squad cost from a transfer fee perspective and the final position in the domestic league table is very high. However, last season, Leicester City won the English Premier League title with the 17th costliest squad out of 20.
 

The 158th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the beneficiaries of transfer investments made by big-5 league clubs. Between 2010 and 2016, roughly two thirds of the fees were paid out to other teams taking part in the five major European championships. This percentage varies between 63% in Italy and 70% in England.

Out of the €19.5 billion spent by big-5 league clubs over the seven years analysed, €12.9 billion benefited teams from the same competitions. To be able to generate considerable incomes on the transfer market, it is necessary to have sufficient economic clout and prestige to attract the best talents either young or adult.

In the current state of play, clubs without the necessary economic muscle have little chance of earning consistent amounts. A good access to dominant transfer networks is also of crucial importance. The main beneficiaries are presented in issue number 157 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post.

More data and insights are available in the 17th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report.

Issue number 157 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 teams having generated the most income from the transfer of players to big-5 league clubs since 2010. Liverpool tops the rankings with €442 million, ahead of Valencia (€432 million) and Juventus (€415 million).

The comparison with the figures on expenditure published last week shows that the transfer balance for Liverpool was negative: -€221 million (not including sales to non big-5 league clubs). However, this is a much lower net loss than for Manchester City (-€777 million), Manchester United (-€659 million) or Chelsea (-€513 million). The figures for Arsenal and Tottenham are -€279 million, respectively -€88 million.

Only nine clubs outside the big-5 league countries are in the top 50 positions for transfer incomes: Benfica (4th), Porto (5th), Ajax (30th), Sporting Lisboa (33rd), Santos (42nd), PSV Eindhoven (45th), Dinamo Zagreb (47th), Shakhtar Donetsk (49th) and São Paulo (50th).

More data and insights are available in the 17th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report.

The 17th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report analyses monetary flows related to the transfer of players within European football. Since 2010, big-5 league club investments have grown almost continually year after year to reach a new record of €4.2 billion in 2016.

Over the seven years analysed, the clubs from the five major European championships have paid €19.5 billion in transfer fees. Premier League teams have spent €7.5 billion, which accounts for 39% of total expenditure. This percentage reached 42% in 2016.

Issue number 156 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the table of clubs who spent the most on transfer fees since 2010 and in 2016. In both cases, Manchester City heads the rankings: €1 billion since 2010 and €231 million in 2016 (including add-ons). In the former table, Guardiola’s team outranks Chelsea (€871 million) and Manchester United (€841 million).

Issue number 155 of the Weekly Post presents the most profitable transfers of the summer from a selling club perspective. The highest gaps between fees paid (add-ons included) and amounts estimated via the CIES Football Observatory algorithm were measured for Gonzalo Higuaín at individual level (+ €23.8 million) and Sevilla FC at team level (+ €34.9 million).

Regarding Higuaín, the existence of a €90 million buy-out clause allowed Naples to cash much more money than it would have been reasonable to expect. In the top three of the best summer sales are also Eric Bailly (+ €23.5 million) and Kevin Gameiro (+ €22.5 million). Time will tell if these risky operations from a financial perspective will prove to be sportingly profitable.

Sevilla heads the club rankings ahead of Crystal Palace and Naples. The six paying fee transfers completed by the Spanish side were negotiated € 34.9 million above the aggregated value calculated through the CIES Football Observatory algorithm. Crystal Place’s second position is mainly related to the price negotiated for Yannick Bolasie’s transfer to Everton.

The 16th edition of the Monthly Report provides more details on the CIES Football Observatory approach to calculate both transfer values and probabilities of professional footballers. During the last transfer window, the correlation measured between fees estimated and paid was 80%. The ratings module on the CIES Football Observatory website presents the estimates for current big-5 league players. For more information, please contact us.

While the transfer window did not yet come to an end, it is already possible to have a good idea of the profile of squads assembled by clubs. Issue number 154 of the CIES Football Observatory Big-5 Weekly Post analyses the average age per team of players fielded in domestic league games.

Up until now, the youngest team at big-5 league level is Nice: 23.3 years. In the English Premier League, the lowest value was recorded for Tottenham (25.5 years). At the opposite end of the spectrum we find Chievo in Europe (31.4 years) and Watford in England (29.8 years).

Among teams qualified for the UEFA Champions League, the average age varies from 24.5 years for Bayer Leverkusen to 29.7 years for Juventus. The second and third youngest teams are the French sides Monaco (24.9 years) and Lyon (25.2 years). All information is available here.

While the summer transfer window is approaching deadline, it is possible to compare predictions published in June by the CIES Football Observatory with reality. As for Gonzalo Higuaín, many players with the highest fee paying transfer probability in June have already changed club.

Among players whose transfer value on June 1st 2016 was higher than 25 million €, the most likely to be still transferred until the end of the transfer window is Alexandre Lacazette (Olympique Lyonnais). His current transfer value is around 50 million € (+ 8 million € since last June).

Also at the top of the June’s transfer probability list, Antoine Griezmann has in the meanwhile extended his contract with Atlético Madrid. This suggests that the French prodigy will not be transferred until 2017. His current transfer value is close to 130 million €.

The ratings module of the CIES Football Observatory website allows users to access the transfer values of all big-5 league players, as well as exclusive statistics on their pitch performance and career paths.

The correlation between values estimated by our algorithm and fees already paid this summer is almost 80%. This confirms the high explaining power of our exclusive approach. For more information, please contact us.

Since the start of July and the launching of the brand new player ratings service, the number of pages visited on the CIES Football Observatory website was multiplied by six. This exclusive tool notably provides the most reliable estimation of the transfer value of big-5 league players currently available on the market.

The ratings module also presents the exclusive CIES Football Observatory performance index for big-5 league players, as well as data on footballers’ career paths such as, among others, experience level compared to other players and transfer fees generated over the career.

For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

The CIES Football Observatory has extended its online offering by launching a ratings module with exclusive statistics on big-5 league players. The new resource includes indicators such as transfer value, pitch performance and level of experience.

Dr Raffaele Poli, head of the CIES Football Observatory, said, “this development is a crucial step towards our recognition as the global leader in the scientific assessment of the transfer value of professional footballers. The tool will allow us to further highlight the accuracy of the algorithm developed”.

All things being equal, a wealthier club will have to invest more to sign a player. As a result, the transfer values published refer to the fee corresponding to the type of team most likely to be interested in recruiting the player. The specific price per recruiter club is only available on a consultancy basis.

Users have the possibility to give their opinion by indicating if the transfer value estimated by the exclusive CIES Football Observatory algorithm is lower, equal or greater than the real market price.

The ratings module also presents the sporting level of big-5 league players by means of an index taking into account performances achieved during the last 1,000 domestic league minutes in six areas of the game: rigour, recovery, distribution, take on, chance creation and shooting.

Finally, the new service includes data on the career path of a player and notably the number of league matches played at adult level. The level of experience of each player is then compared to the average measured at the same age for big-5 league footballers of the same position.

For more information on the CIES Football Observatory, please contact us.

References

Transfer values and probabilities
Technical analysis of player performance
Spotting future stars

According to the CIES Football Observatory exclusive algorithm, the transfer value of players in the English squad amounts to €751 million. This figures is over €500 million for four other teams: France (€697 million), Spain (€639 million), Germany (€601 million) and Belgium (€550 million). Issue number 153 of the Weekly Post presents the data for all nations.

The total transfer value of twelve participating teams out of 24 is lower than that of the most expensive player overall: Cristiano Ronaldo (€138 million). At the bottom of the table is Hungary (€30 million), ahead of Romania (€51 million), Albania (€57 million) and Slovakia (€59 million).

For more information about the approach developed by the CIES Football Observatory research group to estimate the transfer value of professional footballers, please refer to the 16th Monthly Report. Issue number 152 of the Weekly Post presents the top 100 list of the big-5 league players with the highest transfer values. A calculator for footballers in the five major European leagues is available on the CIES Football Observatory website.

Dear subscriber,
the publication of our exclusive analysis on the transfer value of big-5 league players has generated a high level of traffic. As a consequence, the website was no more accessible. This problem is now solved (refresh the browser). We thank you for your understanding and growing interest, best regards

Raffaele Poli, head of CIES Football Observatory

Links to our website
Weekly Post with the 100 top transfer values
Monthly Report with a full explanation of our methodology
Transfer value calculator for big-5 league players

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Who are the footballers whose transfer value is above €100 million? Issue number 152 of the Weekly Post unveils the excusive CIES Football Observatory list of the 100 big-5 league players with the highest values from a transfer fee perspective. Besides Lionel Messi, seven other footballers currently have a transfer value of more than €100 million.

According to the CIES Football Observatory algorithm, the players whose transfer could be negotiated at more than €100 million are Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, Griezmann, Kane, Martial, Suárez and Dybala. More information on the criteria taken into account and the methodology used is provided in the 16th edition of the Monthly Report.

Since 2013, the correlation between the transfer values predicted by the CIES Football Observatory’s algorithm and the fees actually paid for the recruitment of big-5 league players has been close to 80%. The strength of this correlation shows that, on one hand, the footballers’ transfer market is rational and, on the other, that its rationality has been well understood by the econometric model developed.

Per position, the most expensive players from a transfer fee standpoint are Thibault Courtois among goalkeepers (€48.4 million), David Alaba among centre backs (€48.8 million), Hector Bellerín among full backs (€55.6 million), Paul Pogba among central midfielders (€90.4 million), Eden Hazard among attacking midfielders (€78.3 million) and Lionel Messi among forwards (€211.1 million).

The 16th Monthly Report of the CIES Football Observatory also presents the big-5 league players with the highest probability to be transferred for a sum of money. Among footballers with a transfer value of more than €25 million, the most likely to change team during next summer are Gonzalo Higuaín (€60.9 million), Alexandre Lacazette (€41.5 million), Michy Batshuayi (€25.2 million), Antoine Griezmann (€120.2 million) and Romelu Lukaku (€58.1 million).

For more information, please read issue number 16 of the Monthly Report. To contact us, please write at football.observatory@cies.ch

Issue number 151 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks big-5 league clubs according to the average transfer cost per player fielded. Leicester City was crowned despite the third lowest transfer expenditure at English Premier League level (€2.7 million per player). Conversely, Newcastle United could not avoid relegation despite having on average played with the 8th costliest line-up (€7.9 million per player).

In the four other major European championships, the most positive and negative gaps between the position in the transfer cost ranking and that achieved in the final table were measured for Las Palmas (+6) and Valencia (-9) in Spain; Angers (+8) and Marseille (-10) in France; Mainz (+10) and Hannover (-9) in Germany; as well as for Empoli (+7) and Palermo (-5) in Italy.

Overall, the team who fielded on average the most expensive line-up was Real Madrid (€32.2 million per player), followed by Manchester City (€27.5 million), Paris St-Germain (€27.0 million), Manchester United (€26.8 million) and Barcelona (€23.7 million). Champions League finalist Atlético Madrid ranks only 13th (€8.8 million).

David Silva heads the CIES Football Observatory table of the best performing big-5 league attacking midfielders. Manchester City’s Spaniard outranks Mesut Özil (Arsenal) and Henrik Mkhitaryan (Dortmund). In the top three positions for forwards are Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Zlatan Ibrahimovi? (Paris St-Germain) and Neymar (Barcelona). Issue number 150 of the Weekly Post presents the top 10 for both positions.

Following the CIES Football Observatory statistical approach, six English Premier League players are to be found among the ten best performing attacking midfielders of the season. However, only Adam Lallana is eligible for the Three Lions team. The best ranked EPL footballer among forwards, Alexis Sánchez, is only 14th. Cristiano Ronaldo is sixth behind the youngest footballer listed: Paulo Dybala (Juventus, 22 years).

The rankings are established according to six Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), among which take on, chance creation and shooting (see table). More information is available in the 15th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report. The study includes the rankings of players who out-performed the most their teammates, both per position and area of the game. This is particularly useful to unveil the potential of relatively unknown footballers

Last but not least, we also kindly invite you to visite our brand new version of our website.

According to the CIES Football Observatory analysis, Leicester City’s N’Golo Kanté is the best performing English Premier League defensive midfielder of the 2015/16 season. The French is the only EPL player in the top 10 positions. This figure is three at box-to-box midfielder level: Moussa Dembélé (Tottenham, 1st), Dele Alli (Tottenham, 4th) and Yaya Touré (Manchester City, 5th). Paul Pogba (Juventus) ranks 6th. Only footballers who played at least 60% of domestic league minutes are included.

The youngest players in the top 10 lists are Julian Weigl (Dortmund) among defensive midfielders and Dele Alli among box-to-box ones. Both players are only aged 20. The list also features 21-year-old Saúl Ñíguez. Atlético Madrid’s rising star ranks third among box-to-box midfielders of the Spanish Liga behind two great champions: World Cup winners Toni Kroos (Real Madrid) and Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona).

The analysis is based on the statistics of players in six areas of the game, weighted according to their importance per position (see table). Two Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial for defenders: rigour and recovery. The former area defines the ability to minimise opponents’ chances through robust duelling. The latter highlights proficient interception work. Only players fielded for at least 60% of minutes are included in the rankings.

According to our approach, the best performing full back over the 2015/16 English Premier League season was Aleksandar Kolarov (Manchester City). The Serbian is the only EPL player in the top 10 positions. Besides Nicolás Otamendi, Mamadou Sakho (Liverpool) is 10th among centre backs. The youngest footballers in the lists are Ricardo Pereira (Nice, on loan from Porto) for full backs (4th) and Samuel Umtiti (Lyon) for centre backs (9th). They are both aged 22.

According to our analysis, the best performing English Premier League goalkeeper is Hugo Lloris. Tottenham player only conceded 0.8 goals per match (0.5 for Manuel Neuer) and saved 73.9% of shots (78.8% for Manuel Neuer). The highest percentage of saves overall was recorded for Paris St-Germain goalkeeper Kevin Trapp: 80.6%. He is the only player with a percentage of saves greater than 80%.

The least performing goalkeeper both at Premier League and big-5 league level is Brad Guzan (Aston Villa). The American conceded 2 goals per match on average. His percentage of saves was 59.5%. Throughout the season, he won only the first game played on August 8th 2015 against Bournemouth. After this game, his team drew 5 matches and lost the remaining 22 in which Guzan participated.

In the next three Weekly Posts, we will present the rankings for six outfield positions: centre backs, full backs, defensive midfielders, box-to-box midfielders, attacking midfielders and forwards. For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

Only in two big-5 league clubs out of 98, the percentage of long balls compared to total passes is higher than at Leicester: Darmstadt (10.7%) and Ingolstadt (7.8%). The highest figures in the three remaining big-5 leagues were recorded at Eibar (6.6%), Frosinone (6.3%) and Bastia (6.2%). At the opposite end of the spectrum are Paris St-Germain and Bayern Munich (both 1.1%), Barcelona (1.4%), Juventus (1.6%) and Manchester City (2.4%).

The average percentage of long balls for Champions League semi-finalists is 2.1%. At league level, this percentage varies between 3.8% in Italy and 4.6% in Germany. The figures in England and Spain (4.4%) are slightly greater than that observed in France (4.1%). In absolute terms, Deportivo La Coruña had the most recourse to long balls (851, two more than Leicester), while Bayern Munich the least (246).

For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch.

While the English national A-team is among the youngest at worldwide level, the number of eligible U23 players in the big-5 leagues with a higher experience capital than that of current Three Lions internationals at the same age is only five. This figure is much greater for the other nations hosting the five biggest European leagues: 30 for France, 22 for Spain, 18 for Italy and 17 for Germany. This finding both reflects the restricted talent pool available to England’s manager Roy Hodgson and the high experience level of current English full internationals.

The full list of the 92 most likely future English, Spanish, German, French and Italian full internationals is available here.

The study reviews U23 players currently present in 31 top division leagues in Europe. Footballers are ranked according to the level of experience gained since the start of their career at adult level. Among players listed, notably are two goalkeepers who were born in 1999: Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan) and Alban Lafont (Toulouse).

The method of experience capital allows clubs to optimise their approach regarding transfers by considerably reducing the risks inherent in such operations, from both the sporting and economic point of view. For recruiting clubs, there is indeed no better guarantee than recruiting footballers who have had the opportunity to play as often as possible at the highest possible level taking into account their age and talent.

Our research team is at the service of clubs interested in finding out more about the practical modalities of implementing a talent spotting system of this kind.

The English Premier League does not only gather the highest percentage of foreign players (see the 12th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report), but it is also that where the most footballers were recruited from abroad: 43.1%. This percentage is only 31.2% for the French Ligue 1, while the big-5 league average is 36.5%.

The clubs per league who signed the highest proportion of their current squad members from foreign teams are Chelsea (75.0%), Monaco (73.1%), Lazio (67.9%), Sevilla (64.3%) and Bayern Munich (54.2%).

In total, 23 teams big-5 league teams out of 98 recruited at least half of their first team players from abroad: eight in England, five in both Spain and Italy, three in Germany and two in France. The data for all clubs is available in issue number 144 of the CIES Football Observatory Big-5 Weekly Post.

Since last June, Didier Deschamps has fielded 35 footballers who played during the current season in the big-5 leagues (34 for England). So far, they have on average played 1,913 domestic league minutes, which is about 21 matches per player. These figures are 1,585 and 17 for English national A-team players.

Up until now, the employer clubs of big-5 league players fielded by France have achieved 1.72 points per match. The highest value was recorded for teams of Spanish internationals (1.95), ahead of clubs employing footballers representing Germany (1.79) and Italy (1.77). On average, teams of English internationals achieved so far 1.61 points per match. This is only the 9th highest level among teams qualified.

The figures for all countries are available in issue number 143 of the Big-5 Weekly Post. For more information, the 11th CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report presents the squad profile of the 50 most competitive national A-teams at worldwide level. It notably shows that England fielded the youngest players in 2015 at European level.

The second coach with the longest stay at the head of his current club is Christophe Galtier at St-Etienne: 75 months. At the top of the tables in the other leagues are Giampiero Ventura (Torino, 57 months), Diego Simeone (Atlético Madrid, 51 months) and Markus Weinzierl (Augsburg, 45 months).

The median values per league vary between 16 months in the French Ligue 1 and only 9 months in the Italian Serie A. In the latter country, it is not unusual that clubs change many coaches during the same season. This reflects the lack of strategic vision of club officials more than any form of incompetence of coaches.

Between 1st July 2009 and 31st December 2015, footballers who did not yet celebrate their 22nd birthday played 14.6% of domestic league minutes in 31 top divisions throughout Europe. This percentage varies from 28.7% in Croatia to 6.1% in Cyprus. The highest value at big-5 league level was observed in the German Bundesliga (14.5%). This is almost twice as much as in the English Premier League and the Italian Serie A (7.5%).

At club level, the highest figures for teams always present in the top division league of their country during the period analysed were measured for Lokomotiva Zagreb (54.2%), OFK Belgrade (43.0%) and Feyenoord Rotterdam (39.8%). The record level in the big-5 was registered for Schalke 04 (25.0%), ahead of Toulouse (24.2%) and Bayer Leverkusen (20.7%). The record value in the English Premier League was at Liverpool (14.7%).

The Report also presents the lowest values of minutes played by U22 national footballers. AEL Limassol fielded young nationals for the fewest percentage of minutes (0.2%), followed by Stoke City and Juventus (both 0.4%). This figure was very low also at Chelsea (0.5%) and Manchester City (1.4%). Many other teams recently qualified for the Champions League are not concerned about giving young nationals their chance: Naples, Rome, Zenit, Fenerbahçe, Porto, etc.

Issue number 141 of the Big-5 Weekly Post presents the most experienced players born in or after 1995. Experience is calculated on the basis of domestic league matches played since the start of the career at adult level, weighted according to the sporting level of employer clubs. For more information about the experience capital approach exclusively developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team, please refer to the second edition of the Monthly Report.

Six players born in 1997 employed by clubs outside the big-5 leagues have a greater experience than any footballer born in the same year playing in the five major championships: Rúben Neves (Porto), Youri Tielemans (Anderlecht), Breel Embolo (Basle), Enes Ünal (NAC Breda, on loan from Manchester City), Ante ?ori? (Dinamo Zagreb) and Renato Sanches (Benfica). Sooner or later, they all should be able to settle in the most competitive leagues.

The top-10 tables for both players in the big-5 leagues and outside the five major European championships are presented in issue number 141 of the Big-5 Weekly Post. More information is available on request.

Francesco Totti is the big-5 league player who has been for the longest period in the club where he made his debut. The 39 year-old Italian is playing his 24th season at Rome. Conversely, his former teammate both at Rome and in the Italian national team Luca Toni already played for 15 clubs over his career. Both players were in the starting line-up of the 2006 World Cup final won against France.

The youngest player among the 28 big-5 league footballers who played for 10 or more clubs since the beginning of their professional career is the new Newcastle United signing Andros Townsend. While only aged 24, the English international already played for 11 teams: Tottenham Hotspur, Yeovil Town, Leyton Orient, Milton Keynes Dons, Ipswich Town, Watford, Millwall, Leeds, Birmingham City, Queens Park Rangers and Newcastle United.

The full lists are available here.

Overall, the current squad member of a big-5 league club who played the most domestic league games during his career is Leicester City’s goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer: 626 matches. Two other goalkeepers have already played more than 600 championship games over their career: Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus) and Kelvin Davis (Southampton).

Cristiano Ronaldo is second among players born in 1985 behind Bournemouth’s Simon Francis and ahead of Wayne Rooney. The top-3 tables are available in issue number 139 of the CES Football Observatory Big-5 Weekly Post. The analysis includes B-team matches.

The players listed below head the ranking for their age group.

Born on 1996 or after
Dele Alli, Tottenham, 98 matches
Born on 1995
Samu Castillejo, Villarreal, 129 matches
Born on 1994
Nathan Redmond, Norwich, 163 matches
Born on 1993
Romelu Lukaku, Everton, 210 matches
Born on 1992
Koke Resurrección, Atlético Madrid, 236 matches
Born on 1991
Eden Hazard, Chelsea, 277 matches
Born on 1990
James McCarthy, Everton, 295 matches
Born on 1989
Charlie Austin, Southampton, 320 matches
Born on 1988
Sergio Agüero, Manchester City, 368 matches
Born on 1987
Billy Jones, Sunderland, 395 matches
Born on 1986
James Milner, Liverpool, 410 matches
Born on 1985
Simon Francis, Bournemouth, 460 matches
Born on 1984
Wes Morgan, Leicester, 527 matches
Born on 1983
Jon Walters, Stoke City, 456 matches
Born on 1982
Rickie Lambert, West Bromwich, 597 matches
Born on 1981
Gareth Barry, Everton, 588 matches
Born on 1980
Sylvain Armand, Stade Rennais, 522 matches
Born on 1979
Massimo Maccarone, Empoli FC, 539 matches
Born on 1978
Gianluigi Buffon, Juventus, 612 matches
Born on 1977 or before
Mark Schwarzer, Leicester City FC, 626 matches

The U21 footballers listed below have played the highest percentage of minutes per position. Among them are notably two Schalke 04 players: Leon Goretzka and Maximilian Meyer. The latter footballer outranks his teammate Leroy Sané among attacking midfielders. The full tables are available here.

Goalkeepers

Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan), born in 1999, 68.0%

Centre backs

Niklas Süle (Hoffenheim), born in 1995, 100.0%

Full backs

Héctor Bellerín (Arsenal), born in 1995, 92.3%

Defensive midfielders

Leon Goretzka (Schalke 04), born in 1995, 82.5%

Attacking midfielders

Maximilian Meyer (Schalke 04), born in 1995, 78.8%

Forwards

Anthony Martial (Manchester United/Monaco), born in 1995, 89.6%

The biggest performance gap was measured between Real Madrid and Rome: +32%. Atlético Madrid and Bayern Munich also performed significantly better than PSV Eindhoven and Juventus: +25%, respectively +23%. Manchester City and Barcelona outperformed Dinamo Kiev and Arsenal by 11%, while the performance level of Chelsea was 10% higher than that of Paris St-Germain.

According to the analysis of the CIES Football Observatory, the matches with the most uncertain outcome will oppose Gent and Wolfsburg (+3% for the Belgian club), as well as Benfica and Zenit St-Petersburg (+6% for the Portuguese side). Data used for the present research were provided by OptaPro. Click here for more information about the approach of the CIES Football Observatory for sustainable success.

Foreign players are much more numerous in Europe (47.7% of squads) and in the MLS (48.5%) than in Asia (17.9%) and South America (13.6%). Great discrepancies also exist according to position. While foreign footballers account for 34.9% of forwards, they only represent 20.5% of goalkeepers. The relative presence of foreign players among defenders and midfielders is around 25%.

From an age perspective, foreign footballers in the leagues studied are on average older than nationals: 27.1 years compared to 25.7. While only 13.2% of U21 footballers are foreigners, the latter represent 33.8% of players over 28 years of age. Nevertheless, the average age of first migration tends to diminish in relationship with the international recruitment of a greater number of very young players.

In six European leagues surveyed, more than half of teams are made up of foreign players: England, Belgium, Italy, Turkey, Portugal and Germany. At the opposite end of the spectrum, foreign players account for less than 10% of squads in Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Colombia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uzbekistan and Iran.

The study also warns the wealthiest clubs against the risk of abandoning the training of local players in favour of their import. The Report reminds that “all the clubs having left their mark on modern football in Europe (Real Madrid, Ajax, Bayern Munich, Milan, Manchester United, Barcelona) and elsewhere (Boca Juniors, River Plate, Santos, Flamengo) had several home-grown pillars, whose presence made a major contribution to their legendary status”.

The Report concludes that “talented players are born all over the world. What is missing in the first instance, is not so much talents, as a favourable context for their development. So as to encourage clubs worldwide not to take the easy road and fall into the trap of recklessly importing players and selling their souls to the market actors, training must be better protected and better paid”.

In 34 cases out of 49, the gap between the fee invested to recruit a big-5 league player and his estimated transfer value was less than 2 million €. The strong correlation between fees paid and predicted (76%) confirms the accuracy of the algorithm created from the analysis of more than 1,500 paying fee transfers occurred since 2010.

Our study allows us highlighting the payment of much higher or, more rarely, lower transfer compensations than fees paid in the recent past for players with similar characteristics. The inflation in transfer costs compared to the 11 previous transfer windows was 28%.

According to our estimates, the most over-paid player was Jackson Martínez: 42 million € instead of 18.2 (+23.8 million €). Among the five most over-paid footballers are another player transferred to China, Ramires (+10.8 million €), as well as three footballers signed by English Premier League clubs: Lewis Grabban (+7.8 million €), Timm Klose (+7.5) and Andros Townsend (+7.0).

The most under-paid player was also transferred between Premier League clubs: Jonjo Shelvey. According to our analysis, while the transfer value of the young English national A-team midfielder was 30.9 million €, Newcastle was able to sign him for "only" 16 million € (-14.9). The transfers of Mario Suárez to Watford and Augusto Fernández to Atlético Madrid were also cheaper than expected.

The figures for all big-5 league footballers transferred for money in January is available in issue number 136 of the Big-5 Weekly Post. For more information about the CIES Football Observatory approach, please refer to Monthly Reports number 6 and number 7. A transfer value calculator for big-5 league players is also freely available online.

Previous research from the CIES Football Observatory suggests that sticking on a core group of footballers often allows clubs obtaining top level results. No team who heads the table in its respective league used more than 24 players. This figure is 20 for Napoli, 22 for Leicester and Bayern Munich, 23 for Paris St-Germain and 24 for Barcelona.

Conversely, frequent line-up changes tend to reflect anxiety which is detrimental to the improvement of results. So far, clubs at the bottom of the table in their respective league on average fielded 26.0 players. This figure is 22.2 for clubs heading the table, 23.6 for the top three ranked teams per league and 25.3 at big-5 league level.

The indicator of the grip on the game refers to the number and location of passes achieved compared to opponents, while that of dangerousness is the ratio between the number and quality of shots attempted and conceded. More information about the CIES Football Observatory collective key performance indicators is available in issues number five and number seven of the Monthly Report.

The average value between grip on the game and dangerousness results in a composite indicator which allows us measuring the level of dominance of teams and estimating in an objective way the number of points that a club should have obtained accordingly. The comparison between points estimated and achieved permits us highlighting the most and least efficient teams. Future will tell what is the part of luck for the most efficient teams and that of bad luck for the most inefficient ones.

The most efficient big-5 league club so far was Stoke City. With a dominance of 0.53, the Premier League team should have obtained 0.72 points per match, which is 0.78 less than it was actually the case. At second position in the big-5 and at the top of the Liga table is Villarreal. Their dominance was 0.89, which should have allowed them obtaining only 1.24 points per match instead of 2.0 (+0.76).

Issue number 133 of the Big-5 Weekly Post also presents the data for grip on the game, dangerousness and dominance of all teams. The latter indicator suggests that the favourite clubs for the European club competitions are Bayern Munich for the Champions League and Napoli for the Europa League. Manchester City is at the top of the English Premier League table ahead of Leicester and Arsenal.

Dominance ranking

1) Bayern Munich 4.02
2) Naples 3.06
3) Paris St-Germain 2.14
4) Manchester City 2.11
5) Dortmund 2.10
6) Barcelona 2.00
7) Fiorentina 1.89
8) Real Madrid 1.87
9) Juventus 1.68
10) Atlético Madrid 1.66
11) Leicester 1.64
12) Arsenal 1.59

The average age on the pitch recorded for England during matches played in 2015 was 25.6 years. In Europe, only the Netherlands fielded footballers as young as the English ones. The youthfulness of the players available to Roy Hodgson is the sign of a renaissance which prefigures a promising future. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Scotland fielded the most seasoned footballers: 29.0 years on average.

The analysis on height shows that the average full international is 181.9cm. Great discrepancies exist between national teams. The average height on the pitch of the country who fielded the tallest players, Serbia, was 10cm greater than that of the country who played with the shortest footballers, Chile: 185.6 compared to 175.6cm. However, the short stature of the Chileans did not stop them winning the Copa América.

With regard to clubs employing internationals of the most competitive nations, the study shows the great concentration of talent in the wealthiest leagues. Almost one minute out of two was played by big-5 league footballers. In total, 68.9% of minutes were played by footballers under contract with foreign clubs. England is the only squad who did not field footballers playing abroad.

Finally, the Report highlights that 11.3% of national A-team footballers were born outside of the association represented. Two countries heavily relied on players born abroad: Algeria and Albania. Algeria fielded 21 players born in France, while 17 foreign-born footballers played for Albania. In the global era, the disjuncture between the country of birth and that represented will probably strengthen in the years to come.

Find out the other CIES Football Observatory Monthly Reports here.

During this season, footballers with national A-team caps in 2015 played 90% of domestic league minutes at Real Madrid. This figure is above 80 % for five other big-5 league clubs, four English Premier League teams (Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham), as well as Juventus. The only big-5 league team who did not field players with national A-team caps in 2015 is the Italian side Carpi.

The average percentage of minutes by active internationals per league varies between 58% in the English Premier League and 24% in the Spanish Liga. The figures for the three remaining big-5 leagues are 40% in the German Bundesliga, 31% in the Italian Serie A and 29% in the French Ligue 1. The overall percentage at big-5 league level is 36%.

Tomorrow, the CIES Football Observatory will publish the first Monthly Report of the year 2016 focusing on the squad profile of the best performing national A-teams.

The valuation is based on an econometric model created by the CIES Football Observatory research team from the analysis of over 1,500 paying fee transfers occurred since 2010. The criteria taken into account refer to both the performance and personal characteristics of players (age, position, contract duration, etc.), as well as to the competition level and results of their employer club and national team represented (if any).

More information on the indicators included in the algorithm is available in the sixth edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report. Moreover, a player value calculator is freely available online here. It is based on a less sophisticated algorithm including only data accessible to the general public. Although less precise than the statistical model used for these estimates, its predictive power is also high.

The estimated transfer value of Lionel Messi, 251 million €, is 17 million € below that of last June. This is mainly due to the fact that the Argentinean prodigy, who will turn 29 next June, has entered the final phase of his career. Despite outstanding performance levels and transfer cost inflation, his value probably already reached a peak.

Contrary to Messi’s transfer value, that of Neymar has heavily increased since June 2015: from 94 to 153 million €. In 2015, the 23-year-old Brazilian scored 25 goals in 34 appearances in the Spanish Liga, as well as 9 goals in 12 matches at Champions League level. A further increase in Neymar’s transfer value will depend on the outcome of negotiations concerning his contract at Barcelona, which currently runs until 2018.

The third highest transfer value recorded was for Eden Hazard. As for Messi, the value of the Belgian star decreased since June 2015: from 142 to 130 million €. This is mainly due to the poor performances of Chelsea during the first semester of the current season. Hazard himself did not perform at his best. However, the attacking midfielder, recently also fielded as a forward, is still a sure value of world football.

In fourth position is Cristiano Ronaldo. The transfer value of the Portuguese went also slightly down since last June: from 119 to “only” 114 million €. This is mainly due to the age factor: Real Madrid’s striker is set to turn 31 next February. With Santi Cazorla, Ronaldo is the only player aged 30 or over in the top 100 positions of the ranking. This reflects his outstanding talent and performances.

The fifth most valuable player is Harry Kane: 91 million €. This is 35 million € more than in June 2015. During the first months of the current season, the 22 year-old-striker confirmed his extraordinary skills. Moreover, the good results achieved by his employer club, Tottenham, contributed to increase his value. With the same performances on an individual level and Champions League qualification, Kane’s value will probably reach the 100-million € mark at the end of the season.

From sixth to tenth position are other top class attacking players: Raheem Sterling, Antoine Griezmann, Luis Suárez, Sergio Agüero and Alexis Sánchez. The transfer values of Anthony Martial, Paul Pogba, Kevin de Bruyne, Philippe Coutinho and Thomas Müller are also above 70 million €, while those of Robert Lewandowski, Gareth Bale and Romelu Lukaku are just below.

The top 100 list is freely available on the CIES Football Observatory’s website. The data on the 30 most valuable big-5 league club teenagers is available on request at football.observatory@cies.ch.

The analysis of the CIES Football Observatory is 100% data-driven from statistics provided by OptaPro. It takes into account the technical performance of players at big-5 league level since January 1st 2015 in six key areas of the game. More explanations are available in issue number 5 of the Monthly Report. From a broader perspective, the 7th Report presents the exclusive CIES Football Observatory approach for sustainable success.

Outfield players are divided into six positions: centre backs, full backs, defence-oriented central midfielders, attack-oriented central midfielders, attacking midfielders and forwards. Only footballers who played at least 2,250 minutes, equivalent to 25 full big-5 league matches, were included in the rankings.

On the basis of our analysis, the CIES Football Observatory dream team (4-2-3-1) is composed as follows: Neuer; D. Alves, T. Silva, Chiellini, Monreal; Gündogan, Cazorla; Özil, de Bruyne, Hazard; Messi. The dream team for U23 players, born after 1st January 1993, is composed as such: Karius; Bellerín, Umiti, Varane, Wendell; Tolisso, Pogba; B. Silva, Barkley, F. Anderson; Dybala.

Despite top level performances, several players do not appear in the tables as they were not fielded for at least 2,250 minutes in big-5 league games in 2015. This is notably the case of Z. Ibrahimovi?, M. Salah and S. Agüero among forwards; D. Silva, J. Navas and D. Perotti among attacking midfielders; M. Verratti, Y. Touré and A. Ramsey among central midfielders; L. Kurzawa, A. Kolarov and J. Alba among full backs; as well as D. Luiz, J. Boateng and D. Alaba among centre backs.

For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch.

Seven out of the 10 top ranked clubs qualified for the Champions League knockout stage. The only exceptions are Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Inter Milan. The last two clubs did not even participate in the competition. However, the Italian side is currently at the top of the Serie A table.

Real Madrid is the team with the most footballers with national A-team caps in 2015: 19 players. At second position is Manchester United (18). Louis van Gaal’s team outranks Chelsea, Tottenham and Juventus (17 players each). In total, Manchester United players represented 10 national selections. Sergio Romero played more games for Argentina (13) than for Manchester United (4).

List of players

• Sergio Romero, 13 matches for Argentina
• Marcos Rojo, 11 matches for Argentina
• M. Darmian, 10 matches for Italy
• Daley Blind, 9 matches for the Netherlands
• Wayne Rooney, 8 matches for England
• Morgan Schneiderlin, 8 matches for France
• Memphis Depay, 8 matches for the Netherlands
• Phil Jones, 7 matches for England
• Bastian Schweinsteiger, 6 matches for Germany
• Chris Smalling, 6 matches for England
• Anthony Martial, 6 matches for France
• Marouane Fellaini, 6 matches for Belgium
• Patrick McNair, 5 matches for Northern Ireland
• Antonio Valencia, 4 matches for Ecuador
• Juan Mata, 4 matches for Spain
• David De Gea, 4 matches for Spain
• Michael Carrick, 3 matches for England
• Luke Shaw, 2 matches for England

Nowadays, throughout Europe, players with the disadvantages of being born in the last months of the year and of later physical development have little chance of pursuing a career at a high level. The authors recommend to organisations in charge of the development of youth players and the game to “take the question of the relative age effect seriously”.

According to the Report, the limiting of the selection bias linked to the date of birth and to the level of physical development would reinforce meritocracy in football. Over the long term, such a step forward would be beneficial not only to the level of spectacle that teams are able to provide, but also on the level of balance of competitions.

English players are the only ones born on average after July 1st, the average date of birth of a typical citizen. This can be explained by the fact that age classes in English football are based on the cut-off date used by the school system, the 1st September, and not the 1st January as in other countries. Consequently, the least represented players among English professional footballers are those born in August and not in December as in the 30 other associations surveyed.

Issue number 128 of the Big-5 Weekly Post presents the data on the average day of birth of players for each club of the five major European leagues. In 23 teams only, this date is after July 1st. The extreme values were recorded at Fiorentina (20 April) and Southampton (11 August).

In two other clubs only, the average transfer expenditure for player on the pitch is above 20 million €: Chelsea (21.9) and Barcelona (21.3). This figure goes down to 16.1 million € at Arsenal, 15.8 million € at Liverpool, 11.1 million € at Tottenham … and 2.5 million € for Leicester City.

On average, Bayern Munich (15.4 million €) and Juventus (14.4 million €) also spent only half per player than Real Madrid, Manchester City, Manchester United and Paris St-Germain. This finding highlights the great discrepancies existing up to the very top of the football pyramid.

All the data is available here.

In total, the 2,165 footballers fielded so far by big-5 league teams have played in 1,276 clubs from the start of their career at adult level to their 23rd birthday. At the top of the table of teams having contributed most to the development of these players is Real Madrid Castilla. Up until 23 years of age, 45 footballers under contract with big-5 league teams have played for the team currently coached by Zinédine Zidane. Among them, we notably find Juan Mata (Manchester United), Alvaro Negredo (Valencia) and Roberto Soldado (Villarreal).

For comparability reasons, the player development index only considers domestic league games. A match played before the age of 21 is weighted double with respect to a game played between 21 and 23 years of age. Moreover, the values are weighted according to the current employment rate of players in order to give more weight to teams having developed the most fielded footballers.

The team who contributed most to the development of Premier League players is Southampton, followed by Aston Villa and Dutch side Ajax Amsterdam. Chelsea and Everton also rank in the top five positions.

At the top of the tables in the remaining big-5 leagues are Empoli for Italian Serie A players, Bayer Leverkusen for German Bundesliga, Barcelona B for Spanish Liga and Olympique Lyonnais for French Ligue 1 footballers. Issue number 126 of the CIES Football Observatory Big-5 Weekly Post presents the data for the top 40 clubs per league.

The player development index could be particularly useful for leagues, national associations and international football governing bodies to set up systems of financial equalisation and/or reward mechanisms incentivising more teams to promote both the training and fielding of young talents. Over the long term, this would have a positive effect on football as a whole.

For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

The CIES Football Observatory Digital Atlas presents league and club rankings for eight indicators:

• Average age: the oldest top division league in Europe is Turkey (27.3 years), while the youngest is Croatia (23.9 years). At club level, Chievo Verona is composed of the oldest players (30.6 years). Hajduk Split and Senica have the youngest squad (22.1 years).

• Average height: the tallest top division leagues at European level are in Germany and Croatia (183.3 cm). The shortest players are to be found in Israel (180.1 cm). There is a 9 cm gap between the tallest and shortest club: Wolfsburg (187.0 cm) and Ludogorets Razgrad (178.0 cm).

• Average stay: the most stable league from a player turnover perspective is England. Squad members have been in the first team of their employer team for 2.82 years on average. At the opposite end of the table is Serbia (1.71 years). The most and least stable clubs are CSKA Moskow (5.7 years) and Chornomorets Odessa (1.2 years).

• New signings: clubs in Romania signed the most players since January 1st 2015: 14 per club on average. At the other end of the spectrum is Sweden (7.4 players). At club level, the record high was recorded at Bologna (23 players), while the record low was measured for Karpaty Lviv and Metalurg Zaporizhya (1 player).

• Debutants: on average, European top division clubs launched 1.04 players without previous experience in the professional game: from 2.29 in Ukraine to 0.13 in Greece. Metalurg Zaporizhya holds the record at club level with 11 debutants. However, they are currently at the bottom of the Ukrainian Premier League table.

• Club-trained: the top division league in Belarus has the highest percentage of club-trained players (34.0%). Inversely, in Turkey, players who have been in their employer club for at least three seasons between the ages of 15 and 21 only account for 8.3% of squad members. The record high at club level was observed at Gomel (91.7%). More information is presented in the ninth edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report.

• Expatriates: the top division league with the highest percentage of expatriate players is that of Cyprus (66.4%). The lowest proportion of expatriates was recorded in Serbia (15.7%). Expatriate footballers account for up to 88.0% of squad members at Slovenian side NK Zavr?. Only three teams out of 460 have no expatriates: HIFK Helsinki, FK Gomel and FK P?íbram.

• Active internationals: the English Premier League gathers the highest percentage of players with national A-team caps since the start of the season (41.4%). This percentage is only 2.0% in Slovenia. The club composed of the greatest proportion of active internationals is Manchester United (72.0%).

Following UEFA’s definition, club-trained players are footballers who have been for at least three seasons between the ages of 15 and 21 in their employer team. The relative presence of this category of players in squads has steadily decreased from 23.1% in 2009 to only 19.7% in 2015. Club-trained footballers still accounted for more than one fifth of squad members in 2014: 21.0%.

This finding reflects the lesser tendency of European top division clubs to give their chance to players from their youth academy. As a consequence, the average age of footballers in the 31 top division leagues surveyed has reached a new record high: 26.0 years. The decrease in the proportion of club-trained players also reflects the greater mobility of footballers from their youngest age.

The Report also presents the rankings of clubs who trained the most players active in the leagues surveyed. At the top of the overall table is Partizan Belgrade (78 players trained), followed by Ajax Amsterdam (75 players). FC Barcelona heads the ranking of clubs who trained the most players under contract with big-5 league teams (44 players), ahead of Olympique Lyonnais (35 players) and Real Madrid (34 players). All data is available in issue number 125 of the Big-5 Weekly Post.

Last but not least, the CIES Football Observatory is pleased to unveil a brand new version of its exclusive Digital Atlas on the demography of footballers in Europe. This unique tool presents a wide array of indicators allowing users to grasp the latest trends in the European football players’ labour market. The next Monthly Reports will further develop some of the exclusive information presented in the Digital Atlas.

The CIES Football Observatory warmly thanks its growing audience for the interest and positive feedback received. The authors of the Report - Drs Raffaele Poli, Loïc Ravenel and Roger Besson - are at the disposal of media at football.observatory@cies.ch.

The first position held by Otamendi in the centre back table is mainly related to his outstanding skills in the area of rigour (see explanation below). At full back level, Aurier performed particularly well from a recovery perspective. Cazorla outranks all defensive midfielders mainly thanks to his statistics in the area of distribution. Among attacking midfielders, Özil has no rivals in terms of chance creation. Finally, shooting is the key strength of Lewandowski compared to other forwards.

The rankings are based on a purely data-driven and objective methodology developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) considered measure players’ productivity in six complementary areas of the game. The final score is the sum of values measured in each area, weighted according to the importance of the latter for a given position. Only players fielded for at least 60% of domestic league minutes are included in the rankings.

A thorough presentation of the CIES Football Observatory approach for the technical analysis of performance is available in the fifth edition of the Monthly Report.

CIES Football Observatory KPIs

• Rigour: ability to minimise goal opportunities for opponents through effective duelling.
• Recovery: ability to minimise goal opportunities for opponents through proficient interception work.
• Distribution: ability to keep a hold on the game through efficient passing.
• Take on: ability to create dangerous situations by successfully challenging opponents.
• Chance creation: ability to put teammates in a favourable position to strike.
• Shooting: ability to take advantage of goal opportunities through accurate shooting.

At second and third position in the English Premier League ranking are Liverpool (25.5 years) and Newcastle (25.6). In contrast, the average age on the pitch is particularly high at West Bromwich Albion (29.2) and Manchester City (28.5).

The oldest teams in the other big-5 leagues are Rayo Vallecano (29.0 years), Bastia (28.6), Darmstadt (28.1) and Chievo (30.7). The average per league varies between 26.3 years in the German Bundesliga and 27.5 years in the Italian Serie A.

The most numerous contingent of French expatriates is to be found in England. Since the start of the season, 40 players from France played in the English Premier League. However, French are well represented also in Italy (28 players), Spain (27 players), and, to a lesser extent, Germany (11 players, including Kingsley Coman who also played in Serie A).

The analysis of countries with the most representatives in foreign leagues at worldwide level is available in the eighth edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report. For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

While Brazil is the most represented origin among foreigners both in Europe (1,137 players) and in Asia (437 players), Argentina is the main exporting country at Latin American level (511 players compared to only 124 Brazilians).

At worldwide level, the three nations with the most footballers in foreign professional and semi-professional clubs are Brazil (1,784 players), Argentina (929 players) and France (758 players). These three nationalities alone account for almost 20% of foreigners present on a global level.

No South American country is among the top five destinations of Brazilians. Conversely, three of the five main destinations of Argentineans are to be found in South America. Similarly, the main countries to which French players migrate are geographically close to the home country.

The last chapter of the study analyses four leagues in the United States, where football is undergoing considerable development. The Report shows the marked diversification of international recruitment of US clubs. It also predicts that American teams will increasingly challenge European, Asian and South American clubs in the race for new talent.

For more information or to contact the authors of the study, please write to football.observatory@cies.ch

Conversely, the most positive difference so far between financial and sporting ranking in the English Premier League was measured for Leicester City: +12. Claudio Ranieri’s team is in fifth position, while only three EPL clubs invested less money to assemble the squad.

In the other big-5 leagues, the teams that over-achieved the most with respect to transfer investments are Eibar (+10 positions), Angers (+17), Ingolstadt (+11) and Chievo (+8).

On the contrary, the following teams are currently ranked well below the position where their financial power should have allowed them to be: Real Sociedad (-11 positions), Marseille (-13), Stuttgart (-8) and Juventus (-11).

At the top of the absolute tables in the English Premier League are Laurent Koscielny (Arsenal) for centre backs, Cédric Soares (Southampton) for full backs, Santi Cazorla (Arsenal) for defensive midfielders, Mesut Özil (Arsenal) for attacking midfielders and Riyad Mahrez (Leicester) for forwards.

The analysis relies on data provided by OptaPro and takes into account performance in six key areas of the game: rigour, recovery, distribution, take on, chance creation and shooting. A detailed presentation of the exclusive approach developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team is available in issue number 5 of the Monthly Report.

According to this approach, the best performing U21 footballers in the English Premier League so far have been Chancel Mbemba (Newcastle) for centre backs, Jordan Amavi (Aston Villa) for full backs, Emre Can (Liverpool) for defensive midfielders, Nathan Redmond (Norwich) for attacking midfielders and Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) for forwards.

The top 15 list per league and position is updated on a weekly basis on the CIES Football Observatory website. More information is available at football.observatory@cies.ch.

Clubs participating in the Champions League are over-represented in the top positions of the ranking of clubs having generated the most incomes in transferring players to other teams. Among the 15 top ranked clubs, only Monaco, Liverpool and Aston Villa did not qualify for the group stage of the 2015/16 Champions League. This finding shows the key importance to obtain top level results to be able to transfer players for significant amounts of money.

However, the majority of clubs having generated the most incomes on the transfer market are also among teams who invested the most for new signings (see issue number 118 of the CIES Football Observatory Big-5 Weekly Post). Consequently, among the 15 clubs with the most positive net transfer spend, only Wolfsburg and Sevilla take part in the group stage of the current Champions League edition.

Among the 15 clubs with the most negative net transfer spend, we find some of the wealthiest European clubs (Manchester City, Paris St-Germain, Manchester United, Real Madrid, etc.), as well as not-so-rich teams who heavily invested on the transfer market in the hope of improving results, such as Milan AC, Newcastle United, West Bromwich Albion, Bologna, Sunderland and Crystal Palace.

On average, during the last three summer transfer windows (2013-2015), the transfer expenditure of big-5 league clubs was 68% greater than in the three previous ones (2010-2012). The biggest increase was recorded at English Premier League level: +98%.

Manchester City tops the table for summer 2015 with a transfer expenditure of 230 million €, ahead of Manchester United (189 million €) and Juventus (137 million €). The transfer expenditure of English clubs (1.35 billion €, new record high) accounted for 41% of total big-5 league investments.

Manchester City also heads the ranking of transfer fees invested since July 2010: 784 million €. In second and third position are two other English clubs: Chelsea (711 million €) and Manchester United (640 million €). The first non-English club is French side Paris St-Germain (615 million €).

On average, big-5 league players transferred for money during last summer were paid 23% more than footballers with similar characteristics transferred during the five previous years. If we add this percentage to the transfer values estimated by the CIES Football Observatory at the end of the 2014/15 season on the basis of its exclusive econometric model, we obtain figures taking inflation into account.

The comparison of these values with fees paid by clubs allows us to assess transfers from an economic perspective. This analysis is carried out without considering add-on fees related to the future performance of players, nor sell-on fees negotiated on future transfers. Players on loan with buy-out clauses were not included.

This study indicates that the most under-paid player in absolute terms with respect to the sums invested in the recent past for footballers with similar characteristics was Anthony Martial by Manchester United (+27.9 million €, not including add-ons), followed by Kevin de Bruyne by Manchester City (+26.6 million €) and Christian Benteke by Liverpool (+19.6 million €).

At the opposite end of the table, the most under-paid players according to the CIES Football Observatory analysis were Raheem Sterling by Manchester City (-32.1 million €), Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa by Olympique Lyonnais (-11.9 million €) and Robin van Persie by Fenerbahçe (-11.4 million €).

More information is available on the CIES Football Observatory website or on request at football.observatory@cies.ch. For a detailed presentation of the methodology used to estimate the transfer value of players, please refer to issue number 6 of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report.

In total, big-5 league teams have spent a record figure of 9.3 billion euro to sign current squad members. The gaps between clubs are tremendous: from 587 million for Real Madrid to less than one million for Carpi, Frosinone, GFCO Ajaccio, Rayo Vallecano and Sporting Gijón.

From the perspective of transfer market investments, one would expect that Real Madrid, Manchester City, Paris St-Germain, Bayern Munich and Juventus win the title in their respective leagues. Conversely, at English Premier League level, Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich should face relegation just one year after promotion.

For a detailed analysis of the link between transfer expenditure and success, refer to issue number 3 of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report.

Since 2005, the Football Observatory research group within the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) has developed pioneering data analysis to understand the logics of success in football. This report unveils the key findings related to the four main dimensions of sustainable squad management: team chemistry, demographic structure, performance analysis and transfer policy.

Professional clubs, football academies and leagues regularly take advantage of the exclusive expertise gathered within the CIES Football Observatory to increase their competitiveness. The innovative research work carried out also has an educational vocation by helping football stakeholders, including media and fans, to develop original thinking on the beautiful game.

Furthermore, the CIES Football Observatory academic team is pleased to disclose its player performance rankings for the five major European championships. The top 15 list per position and league will be updated on a weekly basis throughout the season. To know more about the methodology used, see Monthly Report number 5.

For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch.

During last season, the percentage of minutes played by club-trained footballers reached a new record low: 14.3%. In the English Premier League, players who spent at least three years between the ages of 15 and 21 in their employer club never played a fewer percentage of minutes than in 2014/15: 10.2%. The minimal level of minutes played by club-trained footballers was recorded in Italy: 8.5%.

The percentage of minutes played by expatriates is stable at around 46%. However, the percentage of players who grew up in a different country than that of their employer club reached a new record high among the five best ranked teams per league: 59.6%. This percentage was never as high as in 2014/15 in three leagues out of five: England (77.1%), Spain (57.1%) and Germany (53.1%). It is also very high in the Italian Serie A: 71.4%.

The CIES Football Observatory is also proud to be able to present for the first time the probabilities of fee paying transfers for big-5 league players. This was a major achievement of the research work carried out by our academic team during the last year. Many expensive footballers are to be found in the top-100 of this ranking, such as Raheem Sterling, Alexis Sánchez, Antoine Griezmann, Harry Kane and Philippe Coutinho.

More information is available in issue number 115 of the Big-5 Weekly Post (the last before the summer break). The full data is presented in the sixth edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report. This publication also explains the unique methodology developed by our research team to estimate both transfer values and transfer probabilities of football players.

The clubs per league having the most relied on U21 players are Monaco (34.6%), Valencia (25.5%), Empoli (23.3%), Bayer Leverkusen (23.1%) and Liverpool (19.8%). Conversely, U21 footballers played less than 2% of minutes in 27 teams out of 98, including at Champions League finalists Barcelona and Juventus.

All the data is available in issue number 113 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post.

For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch.

At the head of the tables per position are Phil Jones (Manchester United) for centre backs, Layvin Kurzawa (Monaco) for full backs, Marco Verratti (Paris St-Germain) for defensive midfielders, Isco Alarcón (Real Madrid) for attacking midfielders and Felipe Anderson (Lazio) for forwards.

In the top-3 positions of the rankings are not only well known players such as Raphaël Varane (Real Madrid), David Alaba (Bayern Munich) or Paul Pogba (Juventus), but also less renowned talents such as José Giménez (Atlético Madrid), Ricardo Rodríguez (Wolfsburg), Granit Xhaka (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Bernardo Silva (Monaco) and Clinton N’Jie (Lyon).

The rankings are based on the CIES Football Observatory exclusive Key performance indicators in the following areas of the game:

• Shooting: ability to take advantage of goal opportunities through accurate shooting.
• Chance creation: ability to put teammates in a favourable position to strike.
• Take on: ability to create dangerous situations by successfully challenging opponents.
• Distribution: ability to keep a hold on the game through efficient passing.
• Recovery: ability to minimise goal opportunities for opponents through proficient interception work.
• Rigour: ability to minimise goal opportunities for opponents through robust duelling.

The evolution noted for the five major European leagues since 2009/10 reflects a strong increase in the sums invested in transfer fees. While the 98 big-5 league teams spent €6.9 billion to recruit players present in their squad in 2009/10 (€70.4 million per club), this figure increased to €8.6 billion in 2014/15 (€87.7 million per club). In six seasons, the average “cost” of a squad from a transfer expenditure perspective increased by 24.5%.

Between 2009 and 2014, the fees invested in signing squad members increased particularly in the English Premier League: €2.43 to €3.43 billion (€171 million per club). The amount spent by Premier League clubs in comparison with the total for the big-5 leagues went from 35% in 2009/10 to 40% in 2014/15. The explosion of revenues from the sale of TV-rights for the period 2016-2019 will undoubtedly reinforce this process.

The minimum threshold of investments in transfer fees above which it is reasonable to expect a podium finish has strongly increased. At big-5 level, the clubs having ranked in the top three places in the 2009/10 season spent on average €189 million in signing squad members. This figure has never been as high as in the current season: €278 million (+47%). Issue number 103 of the CIES Football Observatory Big-Weekly Post also presents the data by position.

The analysis of the recipients of sums invested by big-5 league clubs in signing squad members shows that the redistributive power of the transfer market is limited. Between 2009/10 and 2014/15, 67% of transfer fees were paid out to other teams participating in the five major European championships. A record figure was incidentally measured for the last two transfer windows: 70.5%.

With a view to equality and a wish to improve competitive balance, it would be therefore useful to consider what reforms are necessary to the transfer system so as to promote solidarity. An efficient measure would be to entitle each team in which a player has passed through to a compensation for each fee paying transfer taking place over the course of the player’s professional career on a pro rata basis to the number of official matches played at the club.

We kindly invite you to read the Report to know more about this proposal.

At league level, current French Ligue 1 clubs generated the most transfer fees for youth academy players (292 million €). At the bottom end of the table is Italian Serie A. This finding reflects the low level of club-trained players in Italian top division clubs (see here).

Fees received by Southampton for the transfer of Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw and Calum Chambers represent almost 40% of the total incomes of current Premier League clubs for the transfer of club-trained footballers during the last three seasons.

Southampton is an outstanding example of how youth training can constitute a key competitive advantage both sportingly and economically even in the richest league of the world.

At the head of the other rankings are Dejan Lovren (Liverpool) for rigour, Walter Gargano (Napoli) for recovery, Xabi Alonso (Bayern Munich) for distribution, Karim Bellarabi (Bayer Leverkusen) for take on and Diego Costa (Chelsea) for shooting.

The following big-5 league rookies are to be found in the top 12 positions for five out of the six areas of play taken into account:

Rigour

• Michael Keane (Burnley)
• Sergi Gómez (Celta de Vigo)
• Emiliano Velázquez (Getafe)
• Jin-Su Kim (Hoffenheim)
• Nicolás Otamendi (Valencia)
• Giancarlo González (Palermo)
• Marcos Rojo (Manchester United)

Recovery

• Wendell Nascimento (Bayer Leverkusen)
• Yeltsin Tejeda (Evian)
• Daley Blind (Manchester United)

Take on

• Sadio Mané (Southampton)
• Lucas Vázquez (Espanyol)

Chance creation

• Valentin Stocker (Hertha Berlin)
• Dušan Tadi? (Southampton)

Shooting

• Luciano Vietto (Villarreal)
• Federico Piovaccari (Eibar)
• Diafra Sakho (West Ham)

Please refer to this paper if you want to know more about the exclusive approach of the CIES Football Observatory for sustainable success.

At the head of the table is Ajax Amsterdam. The Dutch team has trained 77 players employed by the 468 teams of the 31 leagues included in the analysis. At second and third place are Partizan Belgrade (74 players) and Barcelona (57). This data confirms the outstanding know-how of these clubs in the training of youth players.

France is the most represented national association in the top 100 positions of the table: 15 clubs. This is seven more than the second and third most represented countries: Spain and the Netherlands. Conversely, there are no Turkish, Cypriot, Romanian and Norwegian teams in the top 100.

If you want to know more about the European football players’ labour market, you are kindly invited to consult our online Digital Atlas. Thank you for your interest!

Thanks to this analysis we are able to highlight not only well-known players such as Luke Shaw, Raheem Sterling, Romelu Lukaku or Thibaut Courtois, but also footballers not yet taking part in the big-5 leagues but of whom we will surely hear much about in the future such as, among others, Tonny Vilhena, Jetro Willems, Pione Sisto or Georgi Milanov.

The notion of experience capital refers to games played in adult championships up until 23 years of age. We attribute different values to matches according to an exclusive classification method that takes into account the performance of national association representatives in European club competitions, the division of the employer club in the domestic league and results achieved for matches played.

The method of experience capital allows clubs to optimise their approach regarding transfers by considerably reducing the risks inherent in such operations, from both the sporting and economic point of view. Our research team is at the service of clubs interested in finding out more about the practical modalities of implementing a talent spotting system of this kind.

The report also emphasises the crucial role of leagues outside the big-5 in the career development of players. Among footballers aged 23 or over currently under contract with big-5 league clubs, only 12% have always played in teams taking part in the top European championships between the start of the professional career and their 23rd birthday.

Issue number 99 of the Big-5 Weekly Post presents the highest capital experience values for U20, U21, U22 and U23 players for both the five major European championships and the remaining 26 leagues surveyed.

Buy-out clauses or options to buy existed for the five most over-paid players. This certainly helped the seller teams in the negotiations: Villarreal for Gabriel Paulista, Swansea for Wilfried Bony and Fiorentina for Juan Cuadrado.

The top level performances of Bernardo Silva and Ryan Bertrand explain the activation of the option to buy by Monaco, respectively Southampton. However, the current value of these players is well below the price paid.

Monaco and Southampton accepted to over-pay by considering the opportunities of development for the players concerned. This holds also true for Arsenal with regard to the signing of Gabriel Paulista. The three players have indeed the concrete possibility to become pillars of their national A-teams in the near future.

The cases of Wilfried Bony and Juan Cuadrado are different as they are already well established full internationals. They were primarily recruited within the context of the race for the Premier League title.

While Chelsea was also able to transfer other players – André Schürrle and Ryan Bertrand – at a higher price than expected, Manchester City was not able to do so. Chelsea could probably have got more from the permanent move of Fernando Torres. Nevertheless, his permanent move allowed the London club to save money for his salary.

The over-representation of deals between Italian clubs among the most under-paid transfers – Manolo Gabbiadini, Alfred Duncan, Daniele Gastaldello, Luca Antonelli and Gabriel Paletta – reflects the deep economic crisis of professional football in the country.

Fore more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

At the top of the rankings per area of the game are José Gímenez (Atlético Madrid) for rigour, Layvin Kurzawa (Monaco) for recovery, Marco Verratti (Paris St-Germain) for distribution, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Arsenal) for take on, Isco Alarcón (Real Madrid) for chance creation and Neymar Júnior (Barcelona) for shooting.

Only two players are in the top 12 positions in three different rankings: Paulo Dybala (Palermo) for take on, chance creation and shooting, as well as Paul Pogba (Juventus) for distribution, take on and shooting. The following players are in the top 12 in two areas of the game:

• José Gímenez (Atlético Madrid)
• Marquinhos Aoás (Paris St-Germain)
• Phil Jones (Manchester United)
• Layvin Kurzawa (Monaco)
• Marc Stendera (Eintracht Frankfurt)
• Marco Verratti (Paris St-Germain)
• Lucas Moura (Paris St-Germain)
• Isco Alarcón (Real Madrid)
• Koke Resurreción (Atlético Madrid)
• Raheem Sterling (Liverpool)
• Nabil Fekir (Olympique Lyonnais)
• Paul-Georges Ntep (Stade Rennais)
• Neymar Júnior (Barcelona)

The full tables are to be found here. More information is available at football.observatory@cies.ch

CIES Football Observatory Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Shooting: ability to take advantage of goal opportunities through accurate shooting
• Chance creation: ability to put teammates in a good position to score
• Take on: ability to create dangerous situations by successfully challenging opponents
• Distribution: ability to keep a hold on the game through efficient passing
• Recovery: ability to minimise goal opportunities for opponents through proficient interception work
• Rigour: ability to minimise goal opportunities for opponents through robust duelling

The top ranked teams in the remaining big-5 leagues are Olympique Lyonnais (6.7 shots per goal, 5th place), Eintracht Frankfurt (6.9, 7th), Chelsea (7.0, 10th) and Palermo (7.5, 12th).

Conversely, at the bottom end of the table are Hambourg (22.9), Aston Villa (20.9), Torino (17.1), Granada (16.9) and LOSC Lille (15.2). These figures both reflect a lack of efficiency and the difficulty in taking up a favourable position to shoot. As a matter of example, Aston Villa scored only two goals out of 109 attempts in second halves!

All these statistics were calculated from data provided by our partners Opta Pro. They are to be found here.

Juventus also led for a majority of domestic league minutes (52.0%). This figure was below 40% for Paris St-Germain (39.8%), Barcelona (39.6%) and Manchester City 38.8%). The record low at big-5 league level was recorded for Sunderland (10.3%). This does not augur well for the Black Cats.

The figures for the 98 big-5 league clubs are to be found here.

The report indicates that stability gives clubs a competitive advantage over rival teams, be it on a sporting level (better medium and long-term results) or an economic one (a greater capacity to launch careers of club-trained players and generating revenues through their transfer).

Stability indicators such as the average length of stay of players in their club or the percentage of new signings in the squad thus show their true worth when judging the pertinence of management strategies instigated by club managers.

Well-informed fans of the most unstable teams have good reason to be anxious. In order to protect football from the bad practices of certain managers, to promote training and to increase team competitiveness, it would thus be timely to consider the introduction of a limitation on the number of transfers allowed.

True to its reputation, our research group is at the disposal of football stakeholders to analyse such a scenario. This would notably be about defining more precisely the boundaries of such a limitation on transfers in order to attain the desired goals, without interfering with the free movement of players or provoking a distortion of the market with regard to the upholding of the principle of proportionality.

Issue number 94 of the Big-5 Weekly Post also deals with the subject of club stability by presenting the date of arrival of current squad members for clubs ranked in first and last position in the table of their respective league. This analysis also allows us to highlight the importance of squad stability for sustainable success.

With the exception of Raheem Sterling, in the top 10 positions of the ranking are only players under contract with teams that are still competing in the Champions League:

• Lionel Messi (Barcelona) : 220 million €
• Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) : 133 million €
• Eden Hazard (Chelsea) : 99 million €
• Diego Costa (Chelsea) : 84 million €
• Paul Pogba (Juventus) : 72 million €
• Sergio Agüero (Manchester City) : 65 million €
• Raheem Sterling (Liverpool) : 63 million €
• Francesc Fàbregas (Chelsea) : 62 million €
• Alexis Sánchez (Arsenal) : 61 million €
• Gareth Bale (Real Madrid) : 60 million €

The club with the most representatives in the top 100 of the table is Spanish giant and Champions League title holder Real Madrid:

• Cristiano Ronaldo: 2nd, 133 million €
• Gareth Bale: 10th, 60 million €
• James Rodríguez: 15th, 50 million €
• Isco Alarcón: 17th, 45 million €
• Karim Benzema: 21st, 43 million €
• Toni Kroos: 23rd, 41 million €
• Luka Modri?: 27th, 37 million €
• Sergio Ramos: 40th, 33 million €
• Daniel Carvajal: 68th, 25 million €
• Raphaël Varane: 87th, 23 million €
• Marcelo Vieira: 94th, 22 million €

The transfer values are calculated using an exclusive algorithm developed on the basis of over 1,500 fee paying transfers occurred since 2009. The variables included in our exclusive econometric model refer to player performances (matches, goals, dribbles, etc.), their characteristics (age, position, contract duration, etc.), as well as competition level and results achieved by their teams (clubs and national sides).

For more information, you are kindly invited to read chapter four of this paper on the CIES Football Observatory’s approach for sustainable success.

This tool is freely available online from our website. It enables anyone to analyse the state of the game in 31 European countries and to follow its progress from year to year. The indicators offered study the characteristics of players from over 500 first division clubs from the perspective of age, height, mobility, training, origin, etc.

By consulting the Atlas, you can notably learn that there is almost 10cm of difference between the club with the tallest players, Diósgyör (186.3cm on average), and that with the shortest ones, Barcelona (177.3).

The Atlas also allows for comparisons between leagues. Regarding age, for example, it shows that the Italian Serie A regroups the oldest footballers (27.3 years on average), while the Dutch Erdivisie is made up of the youngest ones (24.2).

Issue number 92 of the Big-5 Weekly Post helps situate the five major championships in the European context from the point of view of the average age of squad members. It also presents the average age for the 98 big-5 league clubs. The Post notably shows that more than 5 years separate the youngest club, Valencia, from that which gathers the oldest players, Atalanta.

From January onwards, the Football observatory’s academic team will also offer monthly reports instead of our annual paying publications. Like our Digital Atlas, these will also be freely accessible from our website. The first issue will cover the topic of club instability. Moreover, we shall continue the publication of the Big-5 Weekly Post. We are open to sponsorship proposals.

In autumn 2015, we also plan to publish a book destined for the general reader summarising the key points garnered from our analyses over the past decade. There are indeed over 20,000 football enthusiasts like yourselves now on our mailing list. We warmly thank your for your interest in all our numerous areas of initiative.

Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2015!

Moreover, issue number 91 of the Big-5 Weekly Post presents the results of the analysis of the ASAR ratio for clubs from the five major European championships. The ratio is obtained by dividing the average stay of players in the first team squad of their employer club (the longest, the best) with their age at recruitment (the youngest, the best).

Indeed, the analyses carried out since 2005 show a strong correlation in all countries between this ratio and the results obtained by clubs at the end of the season. It is thus not surprising to note that the five clubs that are currently at the top of the table in their respective league are also in the top 20 positions of the ASAR ranking at European level:

• Real Madrid (2nd both at big-5 league level and Spain)
• Juventus (7th and 1st in Italy)
• Bayern Munich (9th and 2nd in Germany)
• Chelsea (11th and 1st in England)
• Marseille (19th and 2nd in France)

From an ASAR perspective, the most over-performing teams so far are Sevilla, Genoa and Valencia. Conversely, Real Sociedad, Borussia Dortmund, Everton, Cagliari and Lille clearly under-performed.

Our academic team is at the service of professional clubs to study their squads in greater detail.

Thanks to our tool, anyone can obtain an accurate, up to date transfer value for players taking part in the five principle markets of European football: the English Premier League, Spanish Primera Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A and the French Ligue 1.

Our statistical model is based on almost 1,500 fee paying transfers having taken place at big-5 league club level from 2009 onwards. The correlation between estimated and actually paid sums is greater than 80%. This shows that we have been able to reveal the logics of the transfer market. This allows us to anticipate events and highlight market bias.

Our team is at service of market actors for expert audits for both big-5 league players and professional footballers playing in other championships at worldwide level.
Do not hesitate to access the calculator here.

Our rankings highlight not only the best performing players overall, but also those who performed the best with regard to teammates. This approach allows us to pick out more players who are not yet part of the top clubs. This is particularly useful from a scouting perspective. To limit bias, only footballers having played at least 66% of match time since the start of the season are included in the study.

In absolute terms, the best big-5 league players at present are Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) both in shooting and chance creation, Eden Hazard (Chelsea) in take on, Xabi Alonso (Bayern Munich) in distribution, Mathieu Coutadeur (Lorient) in recovery and Javi Manquillo (Liverpool) in rigour.

At the top of the relative rankings, we find Charlie Austin (QPR) in shooting, Xabi Prieto (Real Sociedad) in chance creation, Federico Cartabia (Córdoba) in take on, Roberto Trashorras (Rayo Vallecano) in distribution, Alaixys Romao (Marseille) in recovery and Mathieu Bodmer (Nice) in rigour.

Actors from professional clubs can contact us to enquire about our range of products in the domain of performance analysis.

Key performance indicators

• Shooting: ability to exploit goal opportunities through accurate shooting
• Chance creation: ability to putting teammates in a favourable position to score
• Take on: ability to create advantageous situations by successfully challenging opponents
• Distribution: ability to keep a hold on the game through efficient passing
• Recovery: ability to minimise opponents’ chances through proficient interception work
• Rigour: ability to minimise opponents’ chances through robust duelling

In the other championships, the most “expensive” matches this season were Manchester City-Chelsea (578 million €), Paris St-Germain-Marseille (503 million €), Bayern Munich-Borussia Dortmund (272 million €) and Inter-Napoli (263 million €).

This analysis shows the increasing impact of money at the highest level of European football and the difficulty encountered by the vast majority of teams to reach the performance levels of the richest clubs. This state of affairs leads to more predictable results.

Thus, the five clubs touted by our research team as favourites at the start of the season are either in the first (Bayern Munich, Chelsea) or second place (Paris St-Germain, Barcelone, Rome) of their respective championships.

The expatriate presence is particularly high in the English Premier League (59.3%. A new record high since 2009 was measured this season in Italy (54.8%) and Spain (38.9%). Expatriates represent 43.5% in Germany and 31.6% in French Ligue 1. Compared to one year ago, the percentage of football migrants went up in all big-5 leagues with the exception of the English Premier League (-1.6%).

The biggest increase since 2009 was registered in Italy: from 42.4% to 54.8% (+12.4%), while the strongest growth since November 1st 2013 was measured in the German Bundesliga: from 38.1 to 43.5% (+5.4%).

For the first time in history, the main exporting country is France: 113 players compared to 112 for Brazil (former leader) and Argentina. The strongest increase since 2009 was recorded for Spain (from 17 to 58 players in foreign big-5 leagues). During last year, the biggest growth was for Serbia (28 to 39, +11) and Belgium (31 to 41, +10).

More data is available on request at football.observatory@cies.ch

Since the start of the 2014/15 seasons, the teams having fielded the shortest line-ups per league are Barcelona (176.4 cm), Nice (177.0 cm), Empoli (178.2 cm), Hertha (179.4 cm) and Manchester City (179.8 cm).

Conversely, at the head of the rankings of the tallest formations during current season are Stoke City (188.0 cm), Schalke 04 (186.7 cm), Verona (186.2 cm), Monaco (185.5 cm) and Elche (183.6 cm).

Key topics of the Forum also include: creating a global standard for live sport data, low cost performance tools, coach-led analytics, data in science and sport medicine, evidence-based decision making in modern coaching, monetising sports data and video content across multiple platforms, interactive panel discussions, as well as networking activities.

The presentation of the CIES Football Observatory is available on request after the event. Interested parties can contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

View the dedicated event website here.

For the full event programme and how to be part of it, sponsorship and attendance availability email Edward Abankwa at EdwardA@pinnacle-management.com

Click here to REGISTER ONLINE. You can also ring +44(0)7956 675521 / +44 (0)208 657 4062.

Email Ian Brumpton at ian@pinnacle-management.com with partnership and marketing enquiries.

Out of the 43 big-5 league footballers trained at Barcelona, 13 are still playing for the Catalan club. Only Olympique Lyonnais, Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad have a greater number of club-trained players in their current squad. To be able to rely on homegrown talent in this way has provided a key competitive advantage for Barcelona over the last decade. Munir El Haddadi and Sandro Ramírez are the latest examples of this strategy.

Barcelona is also at the top of the table of clubs having trained the most footballers playing for other big-5 league teams (30), ahead of Real Madrid (26) and Manchester United (24). This finding not only highlights the quality of training provided by these top teams, but also demonstrates the difficulty for youth academy players to breakthrough into the first team squad of the most competitive club. This is unlikely to change in the near future, irrespective of the legal framework in force.

River Plate heads the ranking for clubs not participating in the big-5 leagues. The Argentinean team has trained 17 players currently employed by teams in the five major European championships, which is two more than Le Havre, Ajax and Munich 1860.

Issue 86 of the CIES Football Observatory Big-5 Weekly Post also shows that the percentage of club-trained players went down for the fourth consecutive season and has now reached a new record low: 17.2% of squad members. This percentage varies between 24.6% in France and 9.6% in Italy. To be considered club-trained, a player must have played for at least three seasons between the ages of 15 and 21 for his employer club (UEFA criterion).

More information is available on request at football.observatory@cies.ch

At the opposite end of the table, Manchester City fielded the third oldest line-up at big-5 league level: 29.3 years (highest figure in the English Premier League). This suggests that fresh blood is needed to maintain top level performance standards over the long term. Only Verona (31.0) and Torino (30.3) fielded more seasoned players than Manchester City.

Since 2008/09, the youngest line-up in the big-5 was fielded by Nice: 22.1 years on average against Evian on 10.05.2014. Conversely, the team having fielded the oldest line-up is Milan AC: 33.3 years against Catania on 03.05.2009.

The data on the last match day for all big-5 league clubs is available in the 85th Weekly Post. For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

Since the beginning of the English Premier League season, Manchester United achieved the third highest score in points achieved by minute played, ahead of Manchester City (5th). This suggests that Louis van Gaal’s team should be able to further improve its results in the near future. The gap measured with respect to Chelsea is indeed not as significant as at the end of the matches played so far (-0.42 compared to -1.14). Conversely, Arsenal is ranked only 16th.

At individual player level, in the English Premier League Marcos Rojo (Manchester United) has achieved the most points by minute played: 2.39 on average. The lowest figure among footballers who have played at least half of total match minutes was recorder for Niko Kranj?ar (QPR, 0.31).

Players with the most impressive statistics in the remaining big-5 European leagues are Pablo Piatti (Valencia), Dimitri Payet (Marseille), Arjen Robben (Bayern) and Angelo Ogbonna (Juventus). In contrast, the least successful players so far this season besides Niko Kranj?ar are Xabi Prieto (Real Sociedad), Mathieu Peybernes (Bastia), Julian Draxler (Schalke 04) and Daniele Conti (Cagliari).

The minute by minute rankings will be updated after each championship round. They will be available throughout the season on the CIES Football Observatory website.

The best performing players in the other positions are Giorgio Chiellini (centre back), Jordi Alba (full back), Xabi Alonso (central/defensive midfielder) and André-Pierre Gignac (forward). Only footballers who played at least 60% of championship minutes are included in the analysis.

Many footballers who did not yet represent a national A-team are to be found in the top 15 positions of the rankings: Robin Knoche (Wolfsburg), José Fonte (Southampton), Antonio Balzano (Cagliari), Layvin Kurzawa (Monaco), Juan Bernat (Bayern Munich), Roberto Pereyra (Juventus), James Ward-Prowse (Southampton), Manuel Nolito (Celta Vigo) and Wissam Ben Yedder (Toulouse). All these footballers deserve a chance to play for their country of origin.

Players are ranked according to their production and efficiency in six areas of the game (see below). The six key performance skills taken into account are weighted differently per position according to their impact on club results. Consequently, for example, rigour is more important for centre backs than for forwards. For more comparability, the rankings also consider the differences in the intensity and style of play between leagues.

CIES Football Observatory key performance skills

• Shooting: ability to take advantage of goal opportunities through accurate shooting
• Chance creation: ability to put teammates in good position to score
• Take on: ability to create dangerous situations by successfully challenging opponents
• Distribution: ability to hold the grip on the game through efficient passing
• Recovery: ability to minimise goal opportunities for opponents through proficient ball recovery
• Rigour: ability to minimise goal opportunities for opponents by efficiently blocking their actions

A new record high was also measured with regard to the percentage of transfer fees invested with 49% of the ten most active clubs now involved in this activity. In addition, the level of transfer fee compensation paid by clubs in the most active league – the English Premier League - reached a new peak of 45% of total transfer expenditure.

All of these findings show the increasing concentration of fee paying transfer activity at the very top of the football pyramid. At the same time, and as shown in issue 81 of the Big-5 Weekly Post, an increasing proportion of fees invested do also benefit other big-5 league clubs (72% during the last transfer window compared to 67% for the five previous years). These figures highlight the ongoing transformation of the transfer market into a zero-sum game involving a closed circle of top level teams and with significant amounts of money made by dominant intermediaries and/or third-parties.

The club that invested the most on the transfer market since 2008 was Real Madrid €750 million, closely followed by Manchester City (€733 million).

Data refers to the indicators of average age, average height, % of club-trained players, % of internationals, % of expatriates and average stay.

More detailed data relating to club level analysis is presented in our annual publications: Annual Review (big-5 leagues) and Demographic Study (31 top division leagues in Europe).

We also kindly remind you that an online tool to assess the transfer value of big-5 league players is available here.

Thank you very much for your interest!

The team who was able to generate the most incomes by transferring players to big-5 league clubs is Southampton (120.7 million €). The English team outranks Real Madrid (112 million €) and Chelsea (102.4 million €). The only non big-5 league clubs in the top 10 of the ranking is Porto (83.8 million €). However, a big part of transfer incomes of the Portuguese team was finally due to third-parties that held shares on the economic rights of players transferred.

Among the 46 teams that earned at least 15 million €, only six are not part of big-5 leagues: Benfica, Ajax, Sporting Lisbon, Feyenoord, Dinamo Kiev and Salzburg. More information is available in the 81st issue of the Big-5 Weekly Post.

This year’s predictions take into account the following areas: players’ status, squad cohesion and club ambition. The indicator of players’ status considers minutes played by squad members during the previous season, as well as overall results achieved by their employer club. Squad cohesion refers to the percentage of domestic league minutes played in 2013/14 by footballers who are still at the club, as well as the average number of seasons played by current squad members at the employer team. Finally, club ambition includes the average length of contract duration of first team players, as well as the ratio between the status of new signings and that of footballers released by the club during the last transfer window.

Analysis of the above criteria by the CIES Football Observatory academic team indicates that Chelsea, Barcelona, Paris St-Germain, Bayern Munich and Rome are in the most favourable position to win the title in their respective leagues. Our data also suggests that the runners-up will be Manchester City, Real Madrid, LOSC Lille, Borussia Dortmund and Juventus. Among promoted teams, Leicester City, Burnley, Deportivo La Coruña, Metz and Cologne are well placed to achieve good results. In contrast to this, the following clubs are forecast to struggle in achieving satisfactory results: Crystal Palace, Sunderland, Almería, Nice, Eintracht Frankfurt and Chievo Verona.

Enjoy the season and may the best teams win!

Our ‘right price’ has been calculated as the average between a player’s transfer value both before and after the deal. Significantly, the latter figure also considers the new contract duration of the footballer recruited. Both values have been calculated according to the exclusive CIES Football Observatory statistical model which incorporates nearly 1,500 fee paying transfers completed since 2009 (see below).

Our new data analysis has revealed that overall clubs paid on average 16% more than they invested in the five previous years for players with similar characteristics (add-ons included). This confirms the ongoing inflation trend of the transfer market at the top end of the football pyramid. The inflation trend is mainly due to the sums spent by a handful of wealthy clubs. This was notably the case for Manchester United with regard to Angel Di María (+30 million € between the right price and fee reported), for Paris St-Germain for David Luiz signing (+ 29 million €) and for Real Madrid in the case of James Rodríguez (+25 million €).

At the opposite end of the table, our analysis shows that the existence of buy-out clauses and/or non-sporting related issues allowed Barcelona to reduce their offer for Luis Suárez (-12 million € between the right price and money invested). The same holds true for Chelsea with Diego Costa’s signing (-10 million €). In absolute terms, Mario Balotelli was the most under-paid player (-16 million €).

The full picture for all players transferred for a fee of at least 10 million € (including add-ons) is presented in the 79th edition of the Big-5 Weekly Post. We also kindly remind you that our unique and simple online calculator to estimate the current transfer value of big-5 league players is freely accessible here.

The CIES Football Observatory stays at your disposal for any query or more information. Enjoy the season!

CIES Football Observatory’s statistical model

The CIES Football Observatory academic team has developed an exclusive statistical model to assess the transfer value of players and predict transfer fees. This powerful econometrical model is based on the in-depth analysis of a sample of nearly 1,500 players transferred for a fee from big-5 league teams since the summer transfer window preceding the 2009/10 season. The statistical model developed includes a multitude of variables relating to the following areas: age, length of remaining contract, position, player performance at club level for the most recent and previous seasons, results of the clubs for which players are employed, as well as players’ international experience and results of national team represented.

The new transfer value calculator uses an algorithm created on the basis of nearly 1,500 fee paying transfers occurred during the previous five years at big-5 league clubs. The exclusive algorithm will continue to be updated after every transfer window to take into account the latest market trends.

More information on the statistical model developed by the CIES Football Observatory academic team and detailed analysis of current big-5 league players is available in the latest edition of the CIES Football Observatory Annual Review. A free excerpt of this publication can be downloaded here.

The scientific analysis of player transfer values perfectly complements the two other main CIES Football Observatory research areas: squad composition and pitch performance. All of these areas of study are of high importance to clubs as they are able to assist in raising performance levels from both a sporting and economic perspective.

Moreover, the transfer value calculator will help to increase the level of transparency in the beautiful game as all stakeholders – from club officials to the general public – will be able to compare actual fees paid to those estimated as the fair transfer value by the calculator.

The CIES Football Observatory academic team is at your disposal for more detailed analysis. Its services notably include the elaboration of scenarios for future transfer values. For more information about our products and services, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

The ranking takes into account the number of World Cup participants trained per club, as well as the number of league matches played by footballers per team up to the age of 23. This age limit has been set according to FIFA regulations on training indemnities. Training clubs have been defined according to the UEFA definition of at least three years at the club between the ages of 15 and 21.

At the top of the table is Feyenoord Rotterdam. The Dutch team trained 9 players participating in the World Cup. Two other clubs trained as many footballers as Feyenoord: Barcelona and Deportivo Saprissa. However, World Cup participants played 882 matches at Feyenoord until the age of 23, compared to 783 at Barcelona (not including B-team matches) and 445 at Deportivo Saprissa.

At national association level, France tops the table ahead of England and Germany. This is mainly due to the high number of footballers trained in France playing for other national A-teams, notably Africans. This finding also reflects the high employment rate of U23 players in French clubs. In total, 821 clubs in 59 national associations have contributed to the development of World Cup players. The full list of clubs is available here.

We also remind you that the brand new edition of our Annual Review on the five major European leagues is available for sale from the CIES online shop. A free excerpt is available here.