An article (in French) presenting Euro 2012 teams’ strength is to be found at the following address.

The Football Observatory also publishes daily statistics on the Swiss radio and television’s -Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS)- official website.

Other recently published articles are accessible on the web: Football Analytics and Successful Recruitment and Understanding European Football.

CIES Football Observatory’s rankings classify players according to their pitch productivity per minute played in the following areas of the game: shooting, chance creation, take on, distribution and recovery. For the general index, each indicator was weighted according to the strength of the correlation with points achieved by clubs at the end of the season.

Aggregated at team level, all of the Football Observatory indicators are significantly correlated to club results for all leagues and seasons. This ensures their relevance and objectivity. Player pitch statistics are provided by our partner company Opta.

Other big-5 league gold medal winners for the 2011-2012 season are as follows:

Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid CF) for shooting

Mesut Özil (Real Madrid CF) for chance creation

Franck Ribéry (FC Bayern München) for take on

Xavi Hernández (FC Barcelona) for distribution

Arturo Vidal (Juventus FC) for recovery

At league level, the Most Productive Players (general index) were as follows:

Lionel Messi (Spain)

David Silva (England)

Andrea Pirlo (Italy)

Franck Ribéry (Germany)

Anderson Nenê (France)

Lionel Messi is also the Football Observatory’s most decorated player of the season. In total, he achieves two gold, three silver and one bronze medal. Other multi award winners are Franck Ribéry, Andrea Pirlo, Cristiano Ronaldo, Xavi Hernández and Mathieu Valbuena (4 medals each).

The complete list of the CIES Football Observatory medal winners can be found in the special edition of our Big-5 Weekly Post, which is available for free download on our website.

Annual Review pre-ordering

Further analysis will be presented in August, when the CIES Football Observatory will publish the 7th edition of its Annual Review. The electronic version of the specific section on player performance will be already available by mid-June. This will allow interested parties accessing this essential information prior to the opening of the summer transfer window.

The player performance section notably includes rankings which highlight the best performing footballers when compared to their team-mates. This is particularly useful to identify relatively unknown potential signings. The whole section can be obtained by pre-ordering the full CIES Football Observatory’s Annual Review at a cost of ?299 + postage.

To order or for further information, please contact us at: ootball.observatory@cies.ch

Champions

Contrary to 2010/11, when three out of the five champions were correctly forecast, this ratio was 0% for the 2011/12 season. However, the final appraisal is not completely negative. Indeed, three forecasted champions finished 2nd (Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Paris St Germain). From the expected champions, the true disappointments came from Inter Milan (6th) and Champions League winner Chelsea FC (6th).
Moreover, three league champions out of five belonged to a narrow circle of “three-star” teams, for which our model had detected a concrete possibility of winning the title (Manchester City, Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund). Another league winner, Juventus FC, was also forecast to finish on the podium (3th place), while the remaining one, Montpellier HSC, was indicated as a possible surprise team.

Top Three

Our model forecast 10 of the 15 teams that finished the season on the podium in their respective championship. Moreover, two out of the five remaining teams are among those whose quality of play during the two preceding seasons convinced us to classify them as possible surprise teams: Montpellier and Arsenal. This confirms the relevance of pitch performance indicators developed by the CIES Football Observatory on the basis of data provided by our partner company Opta.
Ultimately, only Schalke 04, Valencia CF and Udinese Calcio have confounded our predictions by finishing third. With the exception of Chelsea FC and Inter FC, no team that was predicted to finish on the podium finished lower than fifth place (Olympique Lyonnais 4th, Málaga CF 4th, Bayer Leverkusen 5th).

Most positive and negative gaps

The most positive negative gap between rank estimated and finally achieved was for the Spanish side Villarreal CF (-13 ranks compared to our prediction), followed by three other “two-star” teams that could not avoid relegation: AJ Auxerre (-12), Bolton Wanderers (-9) and Wolverhampton Wanderers (-9).
Conversely, the most positive gaps were for “one-star” teams Levante UD (+13 ranks compared to our prediction), Borussia Mönchengladbach (+11), FC Parma (+11, which was considered as a possible surprise team) and Newcastle United (+10).
For more information, click here

Conclusion

From a prediction perspective, this appraisal shows that the statistical analysis of the demographic profile of teams at the start of the season provides valuable projections. However, it also indicates that numerous other factors, some of which are impossible to forecast and measure, should be taken into account to help determine more accurately winning teams.
While aware of the evident limits of the purely statistical procedures followed, we will continue working to improve our models – and continue to enjoy the project as we follow and analyse this fascinating game!

The CIES Football Observatory is pleased to inform you that a new edition of the Big-5 Weekly Post is available to download for free on our website. The latest issue considers the subject of big-5 league experience (average number of matches in the big-5 during career for players fielded).

Highest / lowest big-5 league experience, per league (last week-end)

English Premier League 143 / Spanish Liga 115

Highest / lowest big-5 league experience, per club (last week-end)

Milan AC (ITA) 285 / Norwich City (ENG) 24

Best players, general index (last week-end)

ENG: Y. Touré (Man. City) / ESP: A. Cejudo (Osasuna) / FRA: Nenê (Paris St. Germain) / ITA: C. Seedorf (Milan AC)

Chelsea FC, who lost in the 2008 final to Manchester United on penalties, and Bayern Munich, who were defeated by Inter Milan in 2010, will return to the biggest stage in club football for what will be a fascinating encounter. Both teams include numerous players who have participated in previous finals and both teams have battled against the odds to reach this stage of the tournament.

The CIES Football Observatory has analysed the two teams and can now present an exclusive identikit using three demographic and three technical indicators which are mainly linked to results. Each indicator is presented comparatively with the value of 100 for the team with the highest score. Our calculations are made on the basis of all matches played this year in the Champions League. Pitch performance indicators have been developed using data supplied by our partners Opta.

Chelsea FC shows greater Champions League experience and squad stability. However, this contrasts with Bayern Munich’s greater pitch performance levels in all areas of the game (attacking, distribution and defending) and recent national A-team activity for its squad members.

Our data indicate that Bayern Munich should win the final. The German side has also the advantage to playing at their home stadium. Interestingly, however, in 1984 AS Roma had also the opportunity to become champions at home but was defeated by Liverpool FC. It should be noted, though, that the last time the Champions League final was played in Munich a German club did win the competition with Borussia Dortmund the winners in 1997.

The today Big-5 Weekly Post is also available. Sign up to receive our e-news and periodic alerts from the home page (bottom left) of our website.

The latest issue of the Big-5 Weekly Post presents data on the best performing footballers for April in each of the five major European championships. All the results are available to download for free from the CIES Football Observatory website.

Rankings are established according to five exclusive key performance indicators identified by the CIES Football Observatory on the basis of raw data provided by our partner company Opta. The indicators cover the following areas of play: open play shot, chance creation, take on, distribution and recovery.

Significantly, all of the indicators aggregated at team level are positively correlated to club results for each league and season. Only footballers who have played at least 50% of championship minutes in April are included in the rankings.

Best players, general index (April)

Big-5: L. Messi (Barcelona) / ENG: C. Tévez (Man. City) / ESP: L. Messi (Barcelona) / FRA: A. Traoré (Auxerre) / GER: I. Periši? (B. Dortmund) / ITA: A. Pirlo (Juventus)

The address eurofootplayers.org is now redirected to this domain. This change reflects the recent and ongoing diversification of activities beyond football within the context of the broader CIES Observatory project.

The official launching of the latter will take place on the 2nd of May at the headquarters of the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) in Neuchâtel. On this occasion, the first ever International Basketball Migration Report will be presented.

Football lovers can rest assured as the Football section of the CIES Observatory will keep on growing and the contents of the website football-observatory.com will also be continuously developed in the weeks, months and years to come!

It should be noted, however, that only a small gap in pitch performance has been recorded by the Observatory for both fixtures and that the results in the two semi-finals are far from certain. As the exclusive Football Observatory performance indicators reveal, the general team productivity of FC Barcelona is only 11.1% greater than that of Chelsea FC, with the latter team showing significantly greater defensive strengths.

The other semi-final between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich is even more delicately balanced with the productivity of the Spanish side only 1.1% greater than that of the high flying German team. As Dr Raffaele Poli, Head of the CIES Football Observatory, notes, “This particular fixture is more likely to be decided by unpredictable events such as the injury to a key player, on pitch errors or various refereeing decisions.”

For more detailed statistics and analysis, please visit the CIES Football Observatory website or email us at eurofootplayers@cies.ch

If you would like to receive our weekly email alerts concerning the Big-5 Weekly Post, we kindly invite you filling in the registration form at the bottom left of the home page of our website.

You can also follow the CIES on twitter at: www.twitter.com/sportCIES

According to our general performance measurement index from the Champions League group stage, the only surprising outcome of the round of 16 was the elimination of French side Olympique Lyonnais by APOEL Nicosia.

The application of the same methodology for the forthcoming quarter finals suggests that the most evenly balanced fixture is that between FC Bayern München and Olympique de Marseille. Indeed, the general team productivity of the former club is only 13.7% greater than that of the latter one. The performance gap is 20.9% between Chelsea FC and SL Benfica, 21.6% between FC Barcelona and Milan AC, and up to 43.6% between Real Madrid and APOEL Nicosia.

More detailed statistics and analysis can be found on the CIES Football Observatory website at www.eurofootplayers.org

Neuchâtel, February 27th 2012

The CIES Football Observatory has today published a new study of football agent activity in Europe. The detailed report reveals that the yearly turnover for football intermediaries in UEFA member national associations is around 400 million €. The study also highlights the great level of concentration in the player representation market: half of the big-5 league footballers are represented by 83 football agents or agencies.

Other key findings concern the demographic profile of licensed agents domiciled in the five biggest European football markets: England, Italy, Spain, Germany and France. A questionnaire survey carried out by the authors of the study, Raffaele Poli and Giambattista Rossi, shows that agents are on average aged 42. Only 3.4% of them are female.

Almost three quarters of agents hold a university degree, and 71% of them speak a foreign language at intermediary or above. Only 41% of licensed agents carry out the job full-time. The majority operate in other business sectors - primarily law and finance.

The study also shows that a minority of agents (46%) support their clients in personal care activities such as finding a house or flat, organize travel, helping family members, etc. This result shows that the general view of agents “baby-sitting” their protégés does not correspond with reality. The former are above all busy in “spinning webs” and brokering deals.

Only 42% of the players represented by the respondents of the survey are senior professionals. This indicates that most of the agents are mainly active in the search for young talent, in the hope of making money in the future. While promising players can also take advantage of this situation, the pressure that intermediaries may exert on them is a controversial issue.

The research also shows that collaboration between intermediaries is also a key aspect of the profession. Half of the agents directly represent players on behalf of colleagues. The main reason to enter into such partnerships is to introduce a player client into a specific national market. This reveals the crucial role played by agents for the setting up of transnational networks at a global level.

Sporting directors are clearly indicated as the most important business partners when placing players, followed by football managers. Almost 40% of agents have already represented at least one coach since starting their career.

The great proportion of agents who manage the careers of both players and managers raises the question of conflicts of interest in the representation and transfer market.

The importance of this problem is even greater considering that more than 70% of respondents also assist clubs in buying, selling or scouting players. Moreover, 15% of licensed agents admitted owning or having owned shares in players’ transfer rights. All these figures reflect the existence of intricate situations and possible conflicts of interest. The report authors are now calling for more transparency.

The full 82-page report may be downloaded for free from the CIES Football Observatory website on www.eurofootplayers.org/-Publications

For more information, please contact the authors at eurofootplayers@unine.ch