Issue number 368 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post crunched the InStat data on goal scoring chances and effective playing time for 36 European leagues since 2018/19 (or 2019) to determine the level of “game openness”. The findings show that clubs in leagues from the North/West part of the continent tend to play more openly than those from the South/East.

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Editors:
Raffaele Poli
Roger Besson
Loïc Ravenel
Thomas Gonzalez

With an average of 11.7 chances and 63’21” effective time per match, the Dutch Eredivisie recorded the highest Game Openness Index, ahead of the German Bundesliga and the Belgian Pro League. At the opposite end is the Spanish Segunda División with just 8.7 chances and 55’06” of effective time. The Greek Super League and the Romanian Liga I also are at the bottom three of the rankings.

On average, the effective playing time of matches in the 36 leagues survey is just above 59 minutes: from 63’21” in the Netherlands to 54’55” in the Czech Republic. Teams create on average 10.2 goal scoring chances per match: from 11.9 in the German Bundesliga to 8.7 in both the Spanish second division and the Greek top one.