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.