December 5 – Goalkeepers, often the old wise heads of top league teams, appear to be getting younger. Of four players under the age of 20 who have played every minute of every league match so far this season in the top divisions of 31 European leagues, three are goalkeepers.
The data from the CIES Football Observatory shows Gianluigi Donnarumma (pictured – AC Milan), Alban Lafont (Toulouse) and Adam Jakubech (Spartak Trnava) holding down starting positions. Donnarumma has also debuted for Italy, replacing the oldest goalkeeper in Serie A, Italian legend Gianluigi Buffon.
The only outfield footballer who played all minutes between July 1st and November 30th is the Dutch centre back Justin Hoogma (Heracles). The top ranked big-5 league outfield centre back is Malang Sarr (Nice).
Looking at the Big-5 league in particular, the top 20 under 20 players sees three from Ligue 1 in France, two from Germany’s Bundesliga and one each from Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A. The highest ranked U20 player in the English Premier League is Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford who has played 62% of minutes played so far this season,
The most represented leagues in the top 100 are the Slovakian (nine players), the Dutch (eight players) and France’s Ligue 1 (seven players).
Souree: CIES Football Observatory
To see the top 100 list go to http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/b5wp/2016/168/en/
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