Athletic Club, the most stable squad in top five European leagues
Athletic Club, the most stable squad in top five European leagues
Los Leones also lead the way in terms of minutes played by club-trained footballers so far in the 2022/23 season
The Demographic Atlas prepared by Swiss research centre CIES Football Observatory reveals that Athletic Club is the most stable club in the five major European leagues in terms of a player's average stay with the first team.
CIES has analysed the average number of months that players used in the first four matchdays of competition have been with their respective first teams, a ranking that Athletic Club tops by quite some distance. The 22 players involved in our first four LaLiga fixtures have spent an average of 66.8 months with the senior side, seven points above the 20 footballers used by Real Madrid (59.4) and the 21 used by Liverpool FC (54.5).
Rounding out the top 10 on the continent are Tottenham Hotspur (53.1), Bayern Munich (52.1), Dynamo Kyiv (49.5), Borussia Monchengladbach (48.4), Manchester City (48.2), Paksi FC (47.9) and Leicester City (47.4).
Athletic has a clear lead in the standings when it comes to LaLiga teams: Athletic Club (66.8), Real Madrid (59.4), Atlético de Madrid (46.1), FC Barcelona (44.4), Real Sociedad (38.8), CA Osasuna (38.5), RC Celta (35.4), Rayo Vallecano (29.3), Real Betis (28.4) and Villarreal CF (26.1) occupy the top ten positions.
What's more, Los Rojiblancos are the clear frontrunners when it comes to minutes given to academy-produced players at the start of the 2022/23 season. 63% of all minutes played by Athletic footballers in LaLiga have gone to Lezama graduates, well above second-placed Real Sociedad (38.3%) and third-placed CA Osasuna (35.8%).
The CIES Football Observatory follows the UEFA criteria for classifying a footballer as homegrown, considering as such those who have played in the club's teams for at least three seasons between the ages of 15 and 21.