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).

Issue number 169 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post highlights clubs whose footballers have played the most minutes in national A-team matches in 2016. At the top of the table is Juventus. Throughout the year, twenty-one players from the Italian team have taken part in 157 international matches for a total of 12,454 minutes.

Issue number 168 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 footballers born on or after January 1st 1997 who played so far the highest percentage of minutes in 31 top division European leagues. Among the four players fielded for 100% of minutes are three goalkeepers: Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan), Alban Lafont (Toulouse) and Adam Jakubech (Spartak Trnava).

Brazil tops the list of countries with the most expatriates in 31 top division championships of UEFA member associations. France heads the table at big-5 league level. All data is available in issue number 167 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post.

Issue number 166 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks European teams according to the average age of line-ups fielded in domestic league matches since July 1st 2016. Danish side Nordsjælland heads the table at the level of 31 top division European leagues (22.1 years), while Toulouse tops the big-5 league rankings (23.4 years).