France is the country with the highest number of locally born players fielded by clubs in the five major championships since the start of the season (440), followed by the four other nations hosting the big-5 leagues. However, only 181 players born in England played in the big-5 so far this season.

The most represented foreign origin overall is Brazil (117 players). At league level, the most represented foreign nations are France (45) in England, Argentina and France (29) in Spain, Brazil (20) in France, Czech Republic (14) in Germany and Argentina (51) in Italy.

Next week we will present exclusive data sourced from the upcoming 2014 World Cup Preview. For more information about this publication, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

In the four other leagues covered, the most productive players were as follows:

Spain: Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Adriano Correia and Aymeric Laporte

France: Zlatan Ibrahimovi?, Grégory Sertic, Geoffrey Kondogbia, Gregory van der Wiel and Loïc Perrin

Germany: Mario Mandžuki?, Mario Götze, Thiago Alcântara, Márcio Rafinha and Nikol?e Noveski

Italy: Luca Toni, Marek Hamšík, Andrea Pirlo, Abdoulaye Konko and Mehdi Benatia

Our analysis also highlighted the outstanding performances of young talents such as Jonny Castro (Betis Sevilla) and Samuel Umtiti (Olympique Lyonnais). More data are available on our website.

Our metrics measure players’ pitch production and efficiency in six complementary areas of the game.

CIES Football Observatory key performance indicators

Shooting: ability to take advantage of goal opportunities through accurate shooting

Chance creation: ability to create goal opportunities through efficient passing

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

Data in each area are weighted according to the impact on club results per position. Consequently, for example, rigour is more important for centre backs than forwards, while the opposite holds true for shooting.

We also kindly remind you that the 2014 edition of our Demographic Study is now available.

At league level the Italian clubs recruit the oldest players (25,5) and the German clubs the youngest (23,2). All in all, four clubs have fielded players, who arrived on average after the age of 27 : Levante (27,6), Elche (27,2), Bastia and West Ham (27,0). In contrast, Real Sociedad (21,5), FC Barcelona (21,6) and Liverpool (21,9) have used players who have been recruited before the age of 22.
The data for each big-5 league club is presented in the 64th Big-5 Weekly Post which is now available here. We stay at your disposal for more information at football.observatory@cies.ch.

Fulham (Burn, Tunnicliffe, Cole and Tankovi?) and Crystal Palace (Ledley, McCarthy, Ince and Murray) top the table of the clubs having fielded the most players without previous big-5 league experience. The youngest rookie so far was Nahuel Leiva (Villarreal), 17 years, while the oldest was Nagore Gómez (Levante), 33 years.

The full list of rookies is to be found in the 62nd edition of the Big-5 Weekly Post. We stay at your disposal for more information at football.observatory@cies.ch.

Our analysis shows that the best performing players per position in England were Luis Suárez (forward), David Silva (offensive midfielder), Jack Cork (central/defensive midfielder), Laurent Koscielny (centre back) and Aleksandar Kolarov (full back). More information is available in the 61st issue of the Big-5 Weekly Post.

Our metrics measure players’ pitch production and efficiency in six complementary areas of the game (see explanation below). Data in each area are weighted according to the impact on club results per position. Consequently, for example, rigour is more important for centre backs than forwards, while the opposite holds true for shooting.

Moreover, all the indicators are comparable at international level as they were developed by taking into account the differences between leagues in both the style of play and game intensity. Our methodology is thus increasingly used by top-flight professional clubs to assess the strength of squad members or potential signings.

We also kindly remind you that the 2014 edition of our Demographic Study is now available. The CIES Football Observatory will also attend the first OptaPro Analytics Forum to be held Thursday. Drs Roger Besson and Raffaele Poli will present a poster on the fight against relegation in the English Premier League.

CIES Football Observatory key performance indicators

Shooting: ability to take advantage of goal opportunities through accurate shooting

Chance creation: ability to create goal opportunities through efficient passing

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

At club level, Real Madrid has invested the most to make up its current squad (536 million euro), followed by Manchester City (435) and Manchester United (395). In the remaining leagues, at the top of the tables are Paris St-Germain (366), Bayern Munich (233) and Juventus (214). Ten clubs spent less than 10 million euro to sign their current squad members. The lowest transfer expenditure in England was recorded for Crystal Palace (24 million euro).

For more information on the CIES Football Observatory, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch. We also kindly remind you that a free excerpt of the freshly published Demographic Study 2014 is available on our website.