Three of European football’s most historic clubs — LaLiga rivals Real Madrid and Barcelona, and Eredivisie giants Ajax — are contributing to the game’s future more than any others on the continent, according to a study by the CIES Football Observatory.
For example, Ajax are so committed to maintaining their ethos of producing top-class young players that the name of the Amsterdam side’s “De ToeKomst” sporting complex literally translates as “The Future.” So it’s perhaps no surprise to learn that Ajax have come top of the latest study complied by the Switzerland-based CIES, which examines which clubs are responsible for producing the most active players in the top tiers of European football.
Across 31 top divisions among UEFA member countries, Ajax have trained 81 players currently active. That equates to more than seven full starting XIs’ worth of players, and is six more than the next team on the list, Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine.
CIES also looked at the elite level. Barcelona may have lost to Real Madrid 2-1 at home in the latest edition of El Clasico (stream the replay on ESPN+ in the U.S.), but they are joint-top when only Europe’s top five leagues are taken into account having each produced 42 players who are currently active at clubs across the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, the German Bundesliga and Ligue 1.
For the study, the CIES followed UEFA’s official definition of a “trainer club,” meaning a youth player must have spent at least three years at the club between the ages of 15 and 21 to qualify. CIES used a custom coefficient to create their data and produce a “Training Index” rating for all clubs across all 31 top divisions of European football which is based on a club’s sporting level, i.e. their results in domestic and international competition.
The level of productivity of all training clubs also takes into account the average number of matches played by “trained youth players” over the last year, as well as the individual players’…
Source : espn
