Launching academy players and recruiting young talents are key success factors in European football. This is the main finding of issue number 111 of the CIES Football Observatory Big-5 Weekly Post. The figures refer to the average age at which current players joint the first team squad of their employer club.
Among the ten teams that integrated players in to the first team squad at the youngest age are many top flights European clubs, including Champions League semi-finalists Real Madrid and Barcelona. The average age of the first match played in the first team is 22.4 years for Real Madrid current squad members and 22.7 for Barcelona ones.
At the top of the tables per league are Real Sociedad (21.7 years), Nice (21.9), Werder Bremen (22.4),Cagliari (22.9) and Manchester United (22.9). Conversely, the recruitment policy of the following teams is based on experienced players: Atalanta (27.4), Eibar (26.8), Manchester City (26.6), Augsburg (25.3) and Guingamp (25.2).
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