The June 2022 Monthly Report of the CIES Football Observatory analyses the evolution in the squad make up of clubs from ten women’s leagues worldwide since 2017. The study notably shows that the strong increase in the percentage of minutes played by expatriate footballers observed between 2017 and 2021 did not continue in the last year.

As for imported players, after four consecutive years of growth, the average age of line-ups fielded by teams did not increase during last year. Since 2017, however, a growth was recorded in eight of the ten leagues studied, with a notable rise in the English Women’s Super League (+2.3 years of age). By league, in 2022, the values vary between 22.1 years of age in the Netherlands and 27.1 in the United States.

The United States also stand out as the main exporting country. With 82 footballers abroad, US citizens outrank the Swedes (46 expatriates) and the Canadians (42). Players from the United States are present in all the leagues studied, with a maximum of 22 representatives in the Swedish Damallsvenskan. In total, 73 associations have at least one expatriate in one of the ten leagues analysed.

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The last CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post before the summer break presents the top 100 estimated transfer values for players worldwide. Thanks to his fresh three-year contract extension with Paris St-Germain, Kylian Mbappé (€206) is back at the top of the list. The French world champion outranks the previous leader and recent Champions League winner Vinícius Júnior (€185M), as well as the new Manchester City striker Erling Haaland (€153M).

The Portuguese Rúben Dias has the greatest estimated transfer value for a centre back: €110M. Gianluigi Donnarumma (€74M) tops the table for goalkeepers, Trent Alexander-Arnold (€87M) for full backs and Pedri González (€135M) for midfielders. Benfica’s striker Darwin Núñez (47th, €70M) has the highest valuation for non-big-5 league players. The 30-year-old Kevin de Bruyne (76th, €57) is the oldest player in the top 100, while 17-year-old Pablo Gavi (73rd, €58M) is the youngest one.

English Premier League clubs dominate the ranking with 41 representatives in the top 100. Transfer value estimate intervals for all big-5 league footballers are available for free here. More information on the CIES Football Observatory approach to assess the transfer value of professional football players on a scientific basis is available in this freshly published peer-reviewed paper. Please contact us to know more about pour services.

TOP 100

Issue number 383 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 footballers who have not yet celebrated their 20th birthday who gained the most playing experience during the first semester of the year. Borussia Dortmund’s and England’s midfielder Jude Bellingham heads the rankings ahead of the FC Barcelona’s and Spain’s duo Pablo Gavi and Pedri González.

Fulham’s FC Fábio Carvalho (7th) is the top ranked player outside of the big-5, ahead of Sparta Prague’s Adam Hložek and Martin Vitík. The podium of U20 footballers playing outside of Europe who gained the most experience since the start of the year is composed of Marcos Leonardo (Santos FC), Juan David Mosquera (Independiente Medellín) and Santiago Simón (River Plate).

The rankings were established according to the experience capital method, which takes into consideration minutes played in official games and their sporting level. This method allows us to combine into a single metrics players’ employment and the level of games in which they participated. More information is available in this Report and on demand.

With the 2021/22 seasons coming to an end, this CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the Best XI for 32 European leagues using its exclusive Impact Score approach combining team results with player employment and technical performance as per InStat data. Tactical formations were chosen by first including top-ranked players in the most frequent position played and adding then footballers for complementary positions.

Players from 21 clubs were selected in the Best XIs for the big-5: Liverpool (6), Manchester City (4) and Tottenham (Harry Kane) in England; Real Madrid (6), Sevilla (2), Barcelona (2) and Betis (Nabil Fekir) in Spain; Milan (4), Inter (3), Juventus (2), Napoli (Amir Rrahmani) and Fiorentina (Nicolás González) in Italy; Bayern Munich (9), Borussia Dortmund (Jude Bellingham) and Bochum (Manuel Riemann) in Germany; Paris St-Germain (5), Marseille (2), Rennes (Benjamin Bourigeaud), Monaco (Aurélien Tchouaméni), Strasbourg (Ludovic Ajorque) and Nice (Walter Benítez) in France.

The ten youngest players in the Best XIs are Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Arsen Zakharyan (Dinamo Moskow), Ilya Zabarnyi (Dynamo Kiev), Adam Hlozek (Sparta Prague), Nuno Mendes (PSG), Jakub Kaminski (Lech Poznan), Ryan Gravenberch (Ajax), Karim Adeyemi (RB Salzburg), Liel Abada (Celtic) and Jurriën Timber (Ajax). The Post also includes the technical profile of players selected according to fifteen categories as explained in this Report.

The 381st CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses the passing game of goalkeepers from 36 leagues worldwide as per data from InStat. The percentage of long forward passes out of total passes stretches from just 8.2% for Paris St-Germain goalie Keylor Navas up to 83.6% for Paksi FC’s Gergö Rácz. Only goalkeepers who played at least 1’000 domestic league minutes (injury time included) were taken into consideration.

The record percentage of long forward passes (at least 40 meters with a span angle of 90°) at big-5 league level was recorded for Burnley FC’s Nick Pope (73.1%) ahead of CA Osasuna’s Sergio Herrera (72.2%). In absolute terms, the greatest value was recorded for Bochum’s Manuel Riemann (27.5 per match on average). Derby County’s Ryan Allsop made the most passes per game (50.0), ahead of Hamburger SV Daniel Heuer Fernandes (48.4).

Goalkeepers passing data heavily reflects the style of play of teams. On a league level, the percentage of goalkeepers’ long forward passes stretches from only 35.7% in the Turkish Süper Lig up to 58.4% in the Scottish Premiership. High figures were also recorded in the English Championship (49.0%) and the Argentinean Liga Profesional (47.5%). More technical data from InStat is exclusively available in the CIES Football Observatory Performance Stats tool.

The 380th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 80 associations with the most players abroad in 135 leagues worldwide. Brazil heads the pack with 1,219 expatriates, followed by France (978) and Argentina (815). While the number of Brazilians and Argentineans abroad went just slightly up since 2017, that of the French increased more significantly.

England’s fourth place is explained essentially by the strong presence of players having grown up in this country in teams of other United Kingdom associations, as well as in Ireland: about 57% of the total number of English expatriates. Germany’s fifth place is notably related to the return migration of numerous players of Turkish origin born and raised in Germany.

Since 2017, the greatest increases in absolute terms were recorded for the French (+208 expatriates), the Dutch (+137) and the Colombians (+124). In relative terms, among nations with at least 100 expatriates, the highest rises were recorded for the Venezuelans (+86%), the Dutch (+60%) and the Austrian (+51%). More exclusive analysis is available for free in the 75th Monthly Report and the CIES Football Observatory Atlas of Migration.

Issue number 379 of the Weekly Post presents the top 10 estimated transfer values as per the CIES Football Observatory algorithm for 10 non-big-5 league top divisions worldwide: Portugal, the Netherlands, Brazil, Belgium, the United States/Canada, Austria, Turkey, Denmark, Switzerland and Scotland. The greatest value overall was recorded for SL Benfica’s striker Darwin Núñez (€71 million).

Darwin Núñez meets all the most important criteria for a very high valuation: young age (not yet 23 years old), long contract (more than three years remaining), playing for a competitive team (SL Benfica) and performing very well, notably from a goal-scoring perspective. Rumours of the Uruguayan striker’s departure for an English top club are entirely plausible. As the latter tend to push up inflation in player prices, a €80-million deal, as publicly reported, is perfectly imaginable.

The following players have the top estimated values in the nine remaining leagues surveyed: Antony dos Santos (NED, €57M), Charles De Ketelaere (BEL, €40M), Gabriel Barbosa (BRA, €39M), Karim Adeyemi (AUT, €31M), Muhammed Aktürkoglu (TUR, €20M), Alan Velasco (USA, €20M), Liel Abada (SCO, €19M), Anders Dreyer (DEN, €15M), as well as Dan Ndoye (SUI, €15M).

Only players for whom we were able to recover the information on contract duration were included in the analysis. Nevertheless, as contract information for the most prominent footballers is generally available, the rankings should accurately reflect reality. Transfer values estimates for players in the big-5 can be accessed for free here. Please contact us for more information on our services.

No team during current big-5 league season fielded club-trained players for a greater percentage of minutes than Athletic Club: 55.8%. The Basque side outranks local rivals Real Sociedad (43.9%), while Celta Vigo (41.2%) complete an all-Spanish podium. The Slovaks of MŠK Žilina (85.5%) top the table for clubs from 40 leagues worldwide. The data for all clubs is available in the 378th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post.

The Colombians of Envigado (76.4%) head the rankings for the nine non-European leagues included in the study, ahead of four Argentinean teams (CA Banfield, CA Lanús, Rosario Central and CA Unión) and the Brazilians of Corinthians (56.3%). Club-trained footballers are defined as players who have been at their employer clubs for at least three years between the seasons during which they celebrated their 15th and 21st birthday.

At league level, the figures stretch from a record-low of 4.0% in the Greek Super League to a record-high of 26.0% in the Argentinean Liga Professional. On average, teams from the 40 leagues surveyed fielded club-trained players for 15.0% of domestic league minutes. Among the 42 teams who did not use club-trained footballers notably are Brentford, Bayer Leverkusen, Bologna and Udinese.

More exclusive information on clubs from 31 European top divisions is available for free in the CIES Football Observatory Demographic Atlas.

Issue number 377 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post relies on technical data produced by InStat to unveil the best performing outfield players in 32 European leagues. Footballers were classified into fifteen technical profiles and ranked according to their performance level with respect to both teammates and opponents, their playing time, as well as their team and league sporting strength.

The following players top the table for the seven attacking profiles: Trent Alexander-Arnold (playmaker creator), Andrew Robertson (playmaker infiltrator), Bukayo Saka (infiltrator creator), Karim Benzema (shooter creator), Vinícius Júnior (shooter infiltrator), Thomas Müller (allarounder target man) and Robert Lewandowski (target man shooter).

At the top of the eight defensive profiles are Éder Militão (ground-to-air blocker), Virgil van Dijk (air blocker filter man), Aymeric Laporte (air blocker playmaker), David Alaba (ground blocker filter man), João Cancelo (ground blocker playmaker), Rodri Hernández (filter man playmaker), Bernardo Silva (defensive infiltrator) and Toni Kroos (defensive shooter).

To know more about the fifteen technical profiles conceived by the CIES Football Observatory research team, please refer to the 74th edition of the Monthly Report. Feel you free to contact us for more information.

Pioneers in the transfer economic valuation field, since 2010, the CIES Football Observatory has been developing a statistical method to assess market prices for professional football players. Issue number 376 of the Weekly Post presents the highest estimated transfer values for the 50 footballers who did not yet celebrate their 23rd birthday and made their big-5 league debut during current season.

Joško Gvardiol tops the table with an estimated value of €96.2M. While only 20-years-old, the centre back has established himself as a pillar of both RB Leipzig and Croatia. If transferred, he could break the record for the greatest fee ever paid for a defender. Gvardiol’s teammate at RB Leipzig Dominik Szoboszlai and FC Barcelona’s prodigy Pablo Gavi complete the podium for the most expensive U23 big-5 league rookies.

To know more about the method and variables used by the CIES Football Observatory research team to assess football players’ transfer fees and values, please refer to this scientific paper freshly published in the peer-review open access journal Economies. The fee estimate intervals for all big-5 league players are available for free on our website. Please contact us for more information about our approach and services.

Issue number 375 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 best performing U21 outfield players from 32 European leagues according to a brand-new approach taking into consideration players’ performance compared to teammates, the employer team’s sporting level, as well as that of opponents. Bukayo Saka (Arsenal) outranks Mason Greenwood (Manchester United) and Patrick Wimmer (Arminia Bielefeld).

For all players listed, the study does not only mention their pitch position, but also the role played within the team according to fifteen technical profile categories. The latter are built from eleven game indicators collected by our partners InStat, covering eight different game areas as detailed in the 74th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report: air defence, ground defence, recovery, distribution, take on, chance creation, air attack and shooting.

Bukayo Saka, for example, is part of the “infiltrator creator” category, defining players particularly active in the “take on” and “chance creation” areas. Mason Greenwood has a “shooter infiltrator” profile (“shooting and take on”), while Patrick Wimmer a “shooter creator” one (“shooting and chance creation). Players from 26 leagues and 14 technical profiles are in the top 100, with the French Ligue 1 (14 players) and the “infiltrator creators” (24 players) being the most represented.

Issue number 374 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 60 leagues worldwide according to the percentage of minutes played since the 1st of January 2021 by footballers that did not yet celebrate their 21st birthday at matches played. The greatest figures were recorded in the Venezuelan (18.8%) and Danish top divisions (16.5%). The Saudi Pro League is at the opposite end (1.6%).

Regarding the average age of line-ups fielded, the lowest values were recorded in the Croatian top division (25.3 years of age), the Mexican Liga Expansión and the Danish Superliga. At the other end of the spectrum are three non-European leagues: the Paraguayan top division (28.9 years of age), the Thai League 1 and the Primera División in Bolivia.

More information on clubs from 31 top divisions of UEFA member associations is available for free in the exclusive CIES Football Observatory Demographic Atlas. Additional data is published on our social media accounts: Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Do not hesitate to follow us to gain even more knowledge on our beloved beautiful game!