Issue number 181 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post highlights the 100 clubs from 31 top division championships of UEFA member associations having on average fielded the oldest line ups in the domestic league matches played during the last six months. The most represented countries in the rankings are England and Turkey (10 clubs each), followed by Cyprus and Russia (9 teams).

The first CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post was published in March 2012. To celebrate this birthday, we ranked the 54 clubs always present in the big-5 leagues during the last five years according to the number of players fielded in domestic league games. Italian side Genoa used the most players overall: 119! At the opposite end of the spectrum is Borussia Mönchengladbach (48 players).

Issue number 179 of the Weekly Post presents the best performing big-5 league players in the six areas of the game that make up the exclusive CIES Football Observatory approach for the technical analysis of performance. The data refers to the last 1,000 minutes played by each player in domestic league matches. Only footballers fielded for at least 360 minutes since January 1st are included.

Issue number 178 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents big-5 league players who have been for the longest consecutive period in the first team squad of their current club. Only footballers who have participated in domestic league matches during the ongoing season are taken into account.

Issue number 177 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the list of footballers trained by clubs qualified for the Champions League last 16 round playing in these teams. The number of footballers trained varies between 11 for Barcelona to only one for Manchester City and Napoli.

What is the common feature between Dele Alli, Renato Sanches, Christian Pulisic and Gianluigi Donnarumma? They are all the most experienced players in their age group among those under contract with clubs of 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations. Issue number 176 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the top 20 list in the experience rankings for players born in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.

Issue number 175 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents a networked representation of fee paying deals having involved big-5 league teams during the last transfer window. Clubs in the five major European championships have invested a record amount of 742 million € to sign new players. The previous record, 523 million €, was established in 2011.

Issue number 174 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents players who made their debut in the professional game after July 1st 2016 fielded during the current season in domestic league matches by a big-5 league club. The analysis notably highlights the key role played by the French top division in the promotion of young talents.

Issue number 173 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the gap between the value of squads and transfer fee expenditure to assemble them. This analysis allows us highlighting the most and least efficient clubs from a player economic valorisation perspective. For the vast majority of teams, the gap is positive. Indeed, the study does not take into account costs that the replacement of squad members would generate.

Neymar is by far the big-5 league player with the highest transfer value. The Brazilian prodigy outranks Lionel Messi and Paul Pogba. Data presented in issue number 172 of the Weekly Post is computed by means of the exclusive CIES Football Observatory transfer value algorithm.

Year after year, the CIES Football Observatory research team has developed a powerful approach for the technical analysis of player performance. On the basis of this methodology, issue number 171 of the Weekly Post presents the 10 best performing big-5 league players per position. Cristiano Ronaldo heads the table for forwards ahead of Lionel Messi.

Issue number 170 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the number of players fielded in domestic league matches from July 1st 2016 onwards by clubs in 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations. The record values were observed for the Finnish champions Mariehamn (17 players) and the Croatian side RNK Split (37 players).