Most youth-oriented clubs
The 472nd CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks clubs in 58 leagues around the world according to the percentage of minutes by footballers who did yet turn 21 in domestic league matches played over the last three years. Barcelona leads the European big-5 league table (22.6% of minutes by U21 players), while Ukrainian side Rukh Lviv are the most youth-oriented club in absolute terms (41.1%).
Denmark’s Nordsjælland (40.7% of minutes by U21s) and Uzbekistan’s Olympic (39.9%) complete the podium across the 58 leagues analysed, ahead of Slovakia’s MŠK Žilina and Austria’s RB Salzburg. At Europe’s big-5 league level, Barcelona outranks the French of Olympique Lyonnais (20,7%). Outside Europe, the Uruguayans of Defensor SC (23.9%) are ahead of Colombia’s Fortaleza CEIF (22.8%) and Envigado (22.5%).
The Post also presents the number of U21 footballers fielded, both in total or imported from abroad. From the latter perspective, at the top three positions are Switzerland’s FC Basel (24 foreign U21 players), Austria’s RB Salzburg (22) and Denmark’s Nordsjælland (21). Parma heads the rankings for the big-5 (16 players), while United Arab Emirates’ Al-Wasl FC tops the table among non-European clubs (13).
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