November 23 – Pep Guardiola might have the most expensively assembled squad in world football, but in the club’s last 42 games he has used just 25 players. In comparison over the same period Watford have used 42 players, Man Utd 32 and Liverpool 30.
Data from the CIES Football Observatory ranks teams from 84 top divisions worldwide according to the number of players fielded in domestic league matches during the last 365 days. The figures greatly vary from only 21 players at the Finnish side Inter Turku up to 61 for four clubs: Club Aurora (BOL), Colo Colo (CHI), EC Juventude (BRA) and Royal AM (RSA).
In Europe’s Big 5 leagues the data shows Genoa Calcio fielded the most players in domestic league matches – 50 – since the 15 November 2020.
At the opposite end of the table are Man City and West Ham who are two of 14 Big-5 league teams who fielded less than 30 players and notably includes “Spanish champions Atlético Madrid (26 players) and European champions Chelsea FC (29)”, say the CIES report authors.
“Per league, the average number of players fielded per team stretches from 25.7 in the Faroe Islands up to 48.4 in Honduras. In the big-5, the extreme values were recorded in the English Premier League (31.0) and the Italian Serie A (37.7). Per Confederation, the figures vary from 35.3 at AFC level up to 43.5 in CONMEBOL.”
To see the full report, click here.
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