Valued at €343 million, Lamine Yamal continues to be the most expensive player in the world according to the CIES Football Observatory’s statistical model. The young Spaniard is ahead of two centre forwards who, although older, keep scoring and performing well : Erling Haaland (€255m) and Kylian Mbappé (€201m).

The last Weekly Post of 2025, the 527th in a series that began in 2012, presents the 100 players worldwide born in 2006 or later who are not yet playing for a big-5 league club having performed best this year.

The 526th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the most physically robust outfield players in terms of minutes played in official matches (club and national team) over the past year. Paraguayan international Júnior Alonso (Atlético Mineiro) tops the list, ahead of Belgium’s Hans Vanaken (Club Brugge) and Argentina’s Nicolás Otamendi (SL Benfica).

The 525th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the players worldwide whose transfer value* is likely to increase the most in absolute terms over the next six months without contract extension and according to a scenario predicting the same performance as in the last six months, both individually (minutes played, starting 11 rate, goal frequency, etc.) and collectively (results).

Thanks to data meticulously collected by our partner Impect, this Weekly Post presents the U23 players from 52 leagues around the world who are most skilled at advancing their team’s play with passes towards the opposition’s goal.

The 523rd CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the world’s smartest clubs on the transfer market since January 2021 in terms of the financial balance sheets of players recruited as professionals and already permanently transferred to other teams.