November 21 – England may have had double World Cup success at FIFA U17 and U20 levels but the fears that few of these winning players would be given limited first team opportunity in the Premier League has very quickly become a reality.
A survey of the 10 most fielded players by position born in or after 1997 in both the big-5 leagues and 26 other top division European championships found just nine out of 55 players in the top 10 playing at Premier League clubs and of them, only five were qualified for England.
The list of English players is headed by Markus Rashford (Man Utd), Tammy Abraham (Swansea), Tom Davies and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (both Everton), and Joe Gomez (Liverpool).
France’s Ligue 1 is the most represented by competition with 19 players. Italy’s Serie A, like the Premier League, has nine players represented. The Bundesliga has 10 players represented and La Liga, perhaps surprisingly given Spain’s youth record at international level, just seven.
“Players from all of the five major European championships except Germany head the big-5 league rankings: Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan) and Alban Lafont (Toulouse) for goalkeepers, UNai Nunez (Athletic Club) for centre backs, Kelvin Amian (Toulouse) for full backs, Lucas Tousart (Lyon) for defensive midfielders, Carlos Soler (Valencia) for attacking midfielders, as well as Richarlison (Watford) for forwards,” point out the authors.
“The most represented leagues among the remaining 26 competitions studied are the Dutch and Slovakian top divisions (8 players each), followed by the Croatian (6) and Ukrainian (5) ones. The youngest footballer in the rankings is Juho Hyvärinen (Rovaniemi),” says the report.
Source: CIES Football Observatory
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