Player of the Year: Alaba heads the pack

Issue number 360 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 50 outfield players and the 50 goalkeepers worldwide who accumulated the greatest pitch experience since the start of the year. The rankings are elaborated on the basis of the exclusive capital experience method, which combines within a single metric the playing time of footballers and the sporting level of the teams for which they played or the competitions they participated in.

The Real Madrid and formerly Bayern Munich David Alaba heads the pack for outfield players ahead of two other centre backs: Rúben Dias (Manchester City and Portugal) and Milan Škriniar (Inter and Slovakia). Carlos Casemiro (Real Madrid and Brazil) and Karim Benzema (Real Madrid and France) top the table for midfielders and forwards. For goalkeepers, Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid and Belgium) outranks Jan Oblak (Atlético Madrid and Slovenia) and Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich and Germany).

Since 2018, the winners were Ivan Rakiti? and Alisson Becker (2018), Virgil van Dijk and Ederson Moraes (2019), as well as Andrew Robertson and Thibaut Courtois (2020). The final 2021 rankings will be published next January. The full experience capital methodology is presented in the seventieth edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report, which also presents current tables for players born in 2001 or after.

Go to the Weekly Post with the top 50s for goalkeepers and outfield players.

Go to the Monthly Report with the methodology & young players rankings.