Issue number 316 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post compares clubs from 31 top divisions of UEFA member associations according to the average age at which they recruited their current players (not including footballers from the youth academy). CSKA Moscow made the earliest recruitment (21.1 years), ahead of FC DAC 1904 (21.7) and SC Heerenveen (22.1).

Real Madrid is the big-5 league club most focused on signing young talents. Their current squad members were on average recruited at the age of 22.2 years. This value is particularly low also for RB Leipzig (22.3) and OGC Nice (22.5). European champions Bayern Munich are in the 30th position of teams having signed the youngest footballers (23.4). Tottenham Hotspur (23.9) and AC Milan (24.3) top the rankings in Italy and England.

At the opposite end of the table is Gençlerbirli?i SK with an average age of recruitment of 29.0 years, followed by Anorthosis FC and BB Erzurumspor. At the level of the big-5 leagues, the teams least focused on the signing of young players are Benevento in the Serie A (28.1 years), Elche CF in the Liga (27.8), West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League (26.5), Montpellier HSC in the Ligue 1 (26.1) and Union Berlin in the Bundesliga (26.0).

Issue number 315 of the Weekly Post highlights the big-5 league players whose transfer value has increased the most in November according to the CIES Football Observatory algorithm. The Norwegian prodigy Erling Haaland tops the table for footballers with a transfer valuation of more than €80M: €155M compared to €120M at the end of October (+€35M).

If the reported €75M release clause valid from 2022 really exists, Borussia Dortmund will be certainly tempted to transfer him at a much higher price at the end of the current season. If Erling Haaland continues to score so many goals and perform at such a great level, once the COVID-19 pandemic is over, he could break the €222M transfer fee record currently held by Neymar.

The top increases in November for the other price ranges considered were measured for Giovanni Reyna (+€34M) for players with an estimated value between €40 and €80M, Florian Wirtz (+€16M) for the €20 to €40M category, Nicólas González (+€7M) for footballers valued between €10M and €20 M and Yunus Musah (+€4.5M) for players whose current transfer value is still below €10M. The updated estimated value ranges for all big-5 league players is available here.

Issue number 314 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the ten most represented foreign origins in 126 professional leagues worldwide. The Brazilians represent the biggest contingent of expatriates in 23 championships, followed by the Argentineans (15) and the French (13). The Atlas of migration displays more exclusive data on international transfer networks.

Players who grew up in France notably are the main expatriate workforce in the English Premier League (47 players), the German Bundesliga (36), the Italian Serie A (35) and the Spanish Liga (30). The French represent the most represented foreign origin in eight other associations: Belgium (both 1st and 2nd division), Bulgaria, Turkey, Switzerland, Romania, Qatar, Algeria and Luxembourg.

The most frequented migration route connects Brazil to Portugal: 141 Brazilians play in the top Portuguese division and 106 in the second one. The three other major migratory channels connect neighbouring leagues, with the bigger nation providing workforce to the smaller: from England to the top Welsh division (100 players), from France to Luxembourg (93), as well as from England to the Scottish Premiership (90).

Issue number 313 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 players from the 10 best European leagues who won the highest percentage of aerial defensive duels since the start of the season. Chelsea’s centre-back Kurt Zouma tops the table with 26 aerial duels won out of 27 (96.3%). Berat Djimsiti (Atalanta) and Harry Maguire (Manchester United) complete the podium.

Often criticised by his own supporters, the English international Harry Maguire lost only three defensive aerial duels out of 30. With 90% of defensive aerial duels won, he has the second best ratio in the Premier League ahead of Yerry Mina (Everton), James Tarkowski (Burnley), Jonny Evans (Leicester City) and Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa).

The five youngest footballers in the top 100 are all born in the year 2000: Loïc Badé (RC Lens), Matteo Lovato (Hellas Verona), Arthur Theate (Ostende), Sven Botman (LOSC Lille) and Tommy St. Jago (Utrecht). Only players having won at least 20 defensive aerial duels were included in the rankings elaborated using the data of our partners InStat.

The 59th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report presents the findings of the annual census on the demographic characteristics of players from 31 European male top divisions. For 2020, the sample is composed of 12,088 footballers. The study reveals that the pandemic slowed the transfer market and strengthened the gaps in the profile of players according to the sporting and economic level of clubs.

After the COVID-19, the part of debutant players in squads has increased by 1.3% compared to the average for the 2009-2019 period. The growth has been greater in the least competitive leagues (+1.9%) than in the five major European championships (+0.2%). Following the pandemic, teams from the least successful leagues have given a first chance to three times more debutant players than clubs from the best championships, compared to only twice more during the previous decade.

After having fallen progressively between 2009 and 2018, the percentage of club-trained players has increased for the second year running (17.8%). This increase is exclusively related to the greater recourse to footballers from their youth academy by clubs in the least performing leagues (+2.3%). Indeed, within the three top championship groups, the percentage of club-trained footballers has actually diminished (between -0.2% and -0.7%).

The pandemic has also slowed the mobility of players. Squad stabilisation has occurred in all league categories. In 2020, the percentage of footballers recruited during the year has dropped by 2.5% in comparison to 2019. The part of new recruits has fallen to a level not seen since 2012 (40.7%). Confronted with significant revenue shortfalls, most clubs have reduced their activity on the transfer market.

COVID-19 has also reversed the trend when it comes to the international mobility of players. While the percentage of expatriates has grown steadily between 2009 and 2019, it has gone down after the pandemic (41.2%, -0.6%). In this case too, the biggest decrease was recorded for the minor championships (-2.4%), while a slight increase has been observed in the big-5 European leagues (+0.2%).

These findings show that the pandemic has exacerbated the inequalities between clubs throughout Europe. Smaller teams had to lower their ambitions even more than bigger ones. For many of the former, the immediate future presents itself more than ever as a fight for survival. In this extremely tense context, the clubs having built up solid training sectors will pull through better than the others. This holds true from both a sporting and a financial perspective.

Click here to access the study by interactively selecting the leagues for which you wish to follow the evolutions on the different indicators analysed.

Issue number 312 of the Weekly Post presents the exclusive CIES Football Observatory annual rankings of the clubs having trained the most players active in 31 top divisions of UEFA member associations. With 85 footballers trained, the Serbian side FK Partizan tops the table ahead of AFC Ajax (77) and Dinamo Zagreb (71). With respect to big-5 league players, the podium consists of Real Madrid (43), Barcelona (32) and Lyon (31).

In accordance with the UEFA definition, training clubs are those where players have been for at least three seasons between 15 and 21 years of age. For the first time, for each footballer, we also considered the number of domestic league matches played over the last year, the sporting level of clubs where they played them, as well as their age. This allowed us to calculate a weighted score reflecting the training work carried out by clubs also from a qualitative and temporal perspective.

Benfica, Ajax and Barcelona recorded the top weighted scores for the training of players in the 31 European top divisions, while Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris St-Germain are at the top of the weighted rankings with regard to footballers currently active in the five major European championships.

Alphonso Davies (Bayern Munich) heads the exclusive CIES Football Observatory list of the highest estimated transfer values for big-5 league players born in the 2000s: €180 M. The Champions League winner outranks Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund, €125 M) and Ansu Fati (Barcelona, €123 M). The top 100 is available in issue number 311 of the Weekly Post.

According to the CIES Football Observatory algorithm, among the 12 big-5 league footballers born in the 2000s with an estimated value greater than €50M are four Englishmen (Jadon Sancho, Mason Greenwood, Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden), two Spaniards (Ansu Fati, Ferran Torres), two Brazilians (Rodrygo Goes, Vinícius Júnior), a Canadian (Alphonso Davies), a Norwegian (Erling Haland), a Swede (Dejan Kulusevski) and a Frenchman (Eduardo Camavinga).

Two players born in 2003 figure in the top 100 list: Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund, €44M) and Florian Wirtz (Bayer Leverkusen, €16M). Bellingham heads the rankings for footballers who did not yet play for a national A-team, ahead of Benoît Badiashile (Monaco, €40 M). The latter outranks Ozan Kabak (Schalke 04, €35 M) and Wesley Fofana (Leicester City, €33M) in the table for centre backs.

Issue number 310 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks teams from 67 top divisions worldwide according to the average age of line-ups fielded in the current season. The lowest figure among teams from countries in the top 20 positions of the UEFA club association ranking was measured for the Danish side Nordsjælland (22.7 years), ahead of Famalicão and Den Haag.

Despite the everlasting Zlatan Ibrahimovi?, Milan AC is the youngest team at the level of the five major European leagues (24.5 years). The Italian club outranks three French (Monaco, Reims and St-Étienne) and two German (Stuttgart, Leipzig) sides. Valencia is the youngest team in the Spanish Liga, while Brighton & Hove tops the table for the English Premier League.

Overall, FK Metta (Latvia) fielded the youngest line-ups (20.6 years on average), ahead of MŠK Žilina (Slovakia) and Grótta (Iceland). FC Nasaf (Uzbekistan) is the youngest team from a non-UEFA association (23.9 years). At the opposite end are Mushuc Runa (Ecuador, 31.6 years), Guaireña (Paraguay) and Anorthosis (Cyprus).

Issue number 309 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents players having committed and suffered the most fouls per minute in 33 European championships according to the data provided by our partners InStat. With one foul suffered every 20’39”, Neymar (PSG) heads the rankings for big-5 league footballers.

Yangel Herrera (Granada), Michail Antonio (West Ham), Rodrigo de Paul (Udinese) and Mark Uth (Schalke 04) top the tables for fouls suffered in the four other major European leagues. With regard to fouls committed, Fabien Lemoine (Lorient), Javi Galán (Huesca), Steven Alzate (Brighton & Hove), Nicolas Höfler (Freiburg) and Juraj Kucka (Parma) head the big-5 league rankings.

The 24-year-old English winger Jerell Sellars (Östersunds) leads the table for fouls suffered at the level of the 33 leagues overall, ahead of Diego Fabbrini (Dinamo Bucure?ti) and Jorge Díaz (Panetolikós). Conversely, the three players having so far committed the most fouls per minute are Kirill Vergeichik (Vitebsk), Mohamed El Makrini (Start) and Aleksandr Kokko (RoPS).

Issue number 308 of the Weekly Post presents the annual CIES Football Observatory analysis on the transfer fee expenditure to assemble the squad by big-5 league teams. As for 2019, Manchester City tops the table with an estimated 1.036 billion euro invested in transfer indemnities to sign their current players (including add-ons).

The figure recorded for Manchester City is €22M higher than that measured one year ago. While still inferior to that of their city rivals, the transfer expenditure to assemble the squad for Manchester United increased by €93M compared to October 2019: from €751 M to €844 M. With this increase, the Red Devils get closer to Paris St-Germain (€888 M, - €25 M) and overtake Real Madrid (€708M, - 194M). The biggest increase was recorded for Chelsea FC (€761M, +€198M).

Apart from Paris St-Germain and Real Madrid, only three other non-English teams are in the top 12: Barcelona (4th, €826M), Juventus (8th, €594M) and Atlético Madrid (11th, €483M). This finding confirms the financial supremacy of the Premier League. No team from this competition has invested less than €100 M in transfer indemnities to sign its current players. The European champions, Bayern Munich, only are 15th (€408M).

While the COVID pandemic has brought a considerable drop in the level of investments on the transfer market, footballers signed for money by big-5 league teams during the last transfer window were paid on average 6% more than players with similar characteristics during the summer 2019. The full CIES Football Observatory analysis is available in the 58th edition of the Monthly Report.

During the last transfer window, clubs from the five major European leagues invested 43% less in transfer indemnities to sign new players compared to summer 2019. The minimal fall was recorded in the English Premier League (from €1.65 to €1.49 billion, -10%), while the maximum was measured in the Spanish Liga (from €1.40 billion to €348 million, -75%).

The percentage of free transfers among all players taken on permanently by big-5 league clubs has significantly increased: from 26.2% to 32.2%. The percentage of players recruited on loan out of all signings went also up: from 23.1% to a record 30.0%. The COVID pandemic has also reinforced the tendency for teams to integrate conditional payments and sell-on percentages into the transactions.

The COVID crisis has strongly impacted the probability that players are signed for money. However, if a transfer takes place, the hypothesis according to which the price would have been negotiated to a lower level than before the pandemic does not hold true. In this regard, the most marking impact of the pandemic resides in the slowing down of the rampant inflation of players’ prices: from 15% on average per year between 2015 and 2019, down to 6% between 2019 and 2020.

Issue number 307 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks clubs having played at least 27 domestic league matches since September 2019 according to the number of players fielded. The sample is composed of 1,014 top or second division teams from 50 countries across the world. The Brazilian club Avaí FC tops the table with 59 players used, 37 more than the two teams having fielded the least footballers: Halmstad (Sweden) and Wellington Phoenix (New Zealand).

Five English clubs are in the top 20 of the most stable teams list: Burnley, Liverpool, Southampton, Brighton & Hove Albion and West Bromwich Albion. In the first 20 positions also are two other big-5 league clubs: Olympique Marseille and Bayer Leverkusen. Conversely, with 42 players fielded over the last year, Genoa is the team from the five major European leagues with the greatest squad turnover, ahead of St-Etienne (40).

Brazilian clubs are over-represented among those using the most players. Thirteen of them have fielded at least 50 footballers during the last year. Many Eastern European teams, notably from Serbia and Ukraine, also are particularly instable. On the contrary, the majority of Western European and Asian clubs do not heavily rotate their squads.