The last CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post for 2023 ranks the clubs in 53 leagues around the world according to the average size of the line-ups fielded in the current or last completed season. Almost 13 centimetres separate the ‘tallest’ and ‘shortest’ teams: Hungary’s Kecskeméti TE (187.13cm) and Japan’s Sagan Tosu (174.18cm).

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Éditeurs:
Raffaele Poli
Roger Besson
Loïc Ravenel
Thomas Gonzalez

While Japanese clubs monopolise the bottom three places (Sagan Tosu, Albirex Niigata and Yokohama FC), three German clubs are in the top four positions: TSG Hoffenheim, FC Schalke 04 and FC Heidenheim. Rayo Vallecano is the only European big-5 league team with an average height on the pitch shorter than 180cm (178.61cm).

The world average is 181.46cm, with higher values in the UEFA association leagues (182.65cm) than in the other continents (179.54cm). All 55 teams where players over 185cm played a majority of minutes are from the Old Continent. More demographic data for 31 European top divisions are available in this Atlas.