Issue number 417 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the percentage of minutes played by footballers who had not yet turned 20 in domestic league matches played over the last five years by 1,168 clubs in 76 leagues worldwide. Denmark’s Nordsjælland crushes the competition with a record percentage of 37%. Slovakia’s MŠK Žilina and Septemvri Sofia of Bulgaria complete the podium.

The top three outside of Europe is made up of two Venezuelan clubs (Mineros de Guayana and Deportivo La Guaira) and Uruguay’s Defensor SC. Borussia Dortmund leads the way among the teams currently in the big-5, ahead of Stade Rennais and FC Barcelona. In terms of the number of U20 players lined up in domestic league matches since 1 April 2018, the Romanian side FCV Farul tops the table with 45 footballers.

>>> Full data set

The 84th CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report analyses attacking playing styles adopted by clubs in 75 leagues worldwide using data for no less than 18,000 matches collected by InStat (now Wyscout). The team statistics on counter-attacks were combined with those of passes in the opponent’s third to distinguish four different offensive styles of play.

The “pressure” style favouring positional attacks is notably predominant il all big-5 leagues except the Bundesliga. The “alternance” style mixing positional and fast attacks is the dominant one notably in the Belgian and Turkish top divisions. The “waiting” style with below-average values for both counter-attacks and last third passes is the main one in both Germany and Portugal, while the “projection” style favouring quick attacks is notably widespread in Latin America.

The team analysis allows for a more precise definition of the offensive tactical options adopted by individual clubs. Although to different degrees, the majority of the most competitive teams adopt a “pressure” attacking style. However, there are exceptions such as Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund who fall into the “alternance” category, Roma and Juventus adopting a “waiting” style or Milan and Eintracht Frankfurt practising a “projection” one.

Finally, we would like to thank the people at InStat for having facilitated access to their data and having understood the meaning of our approach and our mission to push back the frontiers of knowledge in the service of the sustainable development of football around the world. We are sure that our many regular readers will join us in thanking them.

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Weekly Post’s issue number 416 presents the 100 U23 players outside the big-5 with the highest estimated transfer values according to the CIES Football Observatory’s statistical model. Benfica’s centre-forward Gonçalo Ramos tops the list with an estimated value of about €70 million, ahead of three centre backs: António Silva (€66m), Gonçalo Inácio (€62m) and Jurriën Timber (€57m).

Maarten Vandevoordt (Genk on loan from RB Leipzig) tops the list for goalkeepers (€20m), Devyne Rensch (Ajax) for full backs (€23m), Kenneth Taylor (also Ajax) for midfielders (€49m), while the top figure among players outside Europe was recorded for Yuri Alberto (€35m) of Corinthians. The top 100 estimated values for last November and non-big-5 league players under 25 years of age is available here.

>>> Current top 100 U23 list

Issue number 415 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 76 leagues worldwide according to the number of cards per match handed out by referees since 1 January 2020. Bolivia’s Primera División tops the list (7.01 cards per game with 0.55 reds), while Japan’s J2 and J1 leagues are at the opposite end of the spectrum (1.99 cards per match with just 0.05 reds).

Seven Latin American leagues rank in the top nine in terms of total number of penalty cards, the only exceptions being Portugal’s Primeira and Segunda Liga. At the opposite end, Japan’s top two divisions are ahead of the top two leagues from the Netherlands. England’s Premier League Championship, League One and League Two are also at the bottom of the table, confirming the low propensity of referees across the Channel to issue penalty cards.

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Issue 414 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 126 associations worldwide according to the average age of their senior men’s national team line-ups fielded in the last year. The maximum was recorded for Kuwait (29.76 years), while the minimum was observed for Bahamas (22.82 years). In Europe, the values range from 29.40 years for Belgium to 25.07 years for Turkey.

The three lowest values among last FIFA World Cup participants were measured for the USA (24.74 years), Ecuador (25.78 years) and Ghana (25.97 years). All three selections have a bright future ahead. Overall, the share of minutes of players aged 21 or under is 10.2%, compared to 32.7% for 22-25 year olds, 31.5% for 26-29 year olds and 25.6% for 30 year olds or over.

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The loan of players is a practice much in vogue in professional football. The 83rd edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report analyses the characteristics of 3,178 players currently on loan in 75 leagues from 57 associations worldwide. It notably shows that loans concern 9.5% of players, with record percentages at around 20% in Italy.

The report also highlights that loans do not just involve footballers at the start of their career. Indeed, less than 30% of the total number of players on loan are 21 years of age or under, while almost half are 24 or over. This shows that loans are not uniquely used with the aim of developing the potential of young players, but also for several other reasons, such as making room in squads or signing reinforcements without paying transfer indemnities.

Many big-5 league teams figure among the clubs who loan out the most players present on the 1st March in the 75 leagues analysed. Arsenal tops the list with 25 footballers loaned out, followed by Atalanta. Inter, Brighton & Hove Albion, Manchester City, Juventus, Chelsea and Wolverhampton also are in the top 10. Generally speaking, the more competitive the club, the more it tends to loan out players to other teams.

In 63.5% of cases, the clubs where players are loaned have a lower sporting level to the owner clubs. This result indicates that loans principally serve the interests of the wealthiest teams, by allowing them to control the career of more players than they could have in their squad and develop. The club multi-ownership strategy, increasingly used by dominant teams, only reinforces this process.

>>> Full Report

Issue number 413 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the top 100 clubs in the world according to the estimated value of transfer rights held on players in the squad, on loan to other teams or sold with a sell-on percentage. Manchester City top the list with the ownership of transfer rights on no less than 46 players for a total estimated value of €1.46 billion.

Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid complete the podium, ahead of three other English teams: Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. With transfer rights held on players corresponding to €264 million, Brazil’s Flamengo are the highest ranked non-European club. More information on the CIES Football Observatory’s statistical model for estimating the transfer value of professional football players is available in this scientific paper.

>>> TOP 100

Issue 412 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses WyScout data on domestic league assists made by players in 75 championships around the world over the last 365 days. By weighting the number of assists with the sporting coefficient of the matches played, Kevin De Bruyne comes out on top ahead of Ousmane Dembélé and Lionel Messi.

With 12 assists and a weighted score of 13.8, which puts him in sixth place overall, Dejan Kulusevski tops the list among U23 players. Sebastián Villa (Boca Juniors) is the top ranked player currently active in a South American league. In purely numerical terms, without weighting assists by the sporting level of the matches played, with 19 assists in last year domestic league matches, three players are at the top: Dušan Tadić (AFC Ajax), Ahmed Sayed ‘Zizo’ (Zamalek SC) and Emil Hansson (Heracles).

>>> Top 100 assistmen worldwide

The 411th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks the teams currently playing in 75 leagues around the world according to the number of different players fielded in domestic league matches over the last five years. The top three most stable teams are Sweden’s Halmstads BK (44 footballers), Manchester City (47) and Athletic Club (49), with the Brazilians of Ponte Preta (168) at the opposite end. 

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The 410th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks the teams in 52 leagues around the world according to the current season’s ratio between fouls committed and suffered. In the five major European championships, according to the InStat/Wyscout data, the values range from a ratio of 1.49 for Manchester United to 0.68 for Real Madrid.

By league, the highest number of fouls per match was recorded in the Serbian top division (30.3) and the Portuguese second one (30.2). At the other end of the scale are the Danish and Dutch top tiers (19.3 in both cases).

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The CIES Football Observatory research team is pleased to announce the publication of a ground-breaking report that reveals for the first time the inflation of player prices. Over the last decade, player prices have increased at an annual rate of 9%. A footballer paid €1 million in 2013/14 now costs €2.16 million (+116%).

The prices of players recruited by English Premier League clubs have risen more sharply than those of footballers hired by teams outside this competition: on average +12.2% per year compared to +8.4%. Inflation was also particularly marked for centre backs (+12.5% per annum), full backs (+11.1%), as well as for players aged 21 or under (+12.7%).

Overall, all else being equal, player prices increased at an annual rate of 13.8% between the 2013/14 and 2019/20 seasons, and then by -0.2% in the three seasons following the pandemic. However, after falling sharply in 2021/22, player prices resumed their growth in 2022/23, suggesting a rapid return to record levels.

In terms of investment volume, the total of €9.12 billion measured in 2022/23 is the second highest since the record season of 2019/2020. The rebound in 2021/22 from the sharp decline in the pandemic-affected 2020/21 season has thus continued into the current season, with even a new record for a winter transfer window in January 2023, largely driven by Premier League teams’ spending.

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Issue number 409 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks teams worldwide according to the total estimated transfer value of their youth academy graduates (at least three years between the ages of 15 and 21) active in more than 50 professional leagues. SL Benfica tops the table with a total academy graduates’ value of €670 million spread between 104 players, of which €151m for 20 footballers whose transfer rights are still owned by the Portuguese team. Chelsea and Barcelona round up the podium, while three Brazilian teams are in the top 10.

Transfer values were assessed through a statistical model exclusively developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team. A toolkit developed in association with Wyscout available on subscription notably includes the estimates for >30,000 players from 75 leagues worldwide. More information and a free trial access are available on demand.

>>> Top 100 academies