Which European Leagues and Clubs Put Most Faith in Young Players? ...Middle East

Ever wondered how attitudes and priorities relating to young players vary across Europe? Well, wonder no longer…

Trusting and developing youth players could be seen by many football fans as one of the most virtuous, pride-evoking and exciting aspects of the sport in the modern era.

In an age of sportswashing, petrodollars and multi-club ownership, seeing young players progress through academies and into first-team squads brings an almost forgotten sense of tradition to the beautiful game.

We all recognise that feeling of seeing a 17- or 18-year-old local kid making their first appearance and exciting the crowd with that mix of youthful exuberance and regional pride.

The popular computer game series Football Manager has probably been at least partly sustained by fans who try to build teams solely comprising of ‘wonderkids’ brought through academy systems.

Manchester United’s immense success through the 1990s and 2000s was built upon something similar, with the so-called “Class of ‘92” pivotal for Sir Alex Ferguson’s best teams and helping the club further their proud heritage around homegrown talent.

In fact, Man Utd claim to have had at least one academy graduate in every matchday squad they’ve named since 30 October 1937 – that’s over 4,000 games.

Of course, not every young player gets their big break at their local team; football is such a global sport now, after all. But developing young talent still carries huge importance, hence why most professional clubs – certainly at the elite level, anyway – these days have recruitment directors and specialists working at academy level. Meanwhile, promising first-team talents in their early 20s can cost a premium.

But teams have different budgets, priorities and policies, and young prospects have better pathways to first-team football in some leagues than in others. So…

How Does Reliance on Youth Vary Across Europe?

Well, across what Opta considers the top 10 European leagues (that’s the big five, plus the top tier in the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Turkey and Czechia) that difference is quite stark.

It would be reasonable to assume the most developed, high-profile leagues have the least reliance on youth. The money swirling around those competitions is greater and therefore – as those in charge of them would probably suggest – the stakes are higher. The focus in recruitment, then, is presumably on players approaching or at their peak.

Makes sense, and the data generally backs up those assumptions. But of the 10 leagues analysed, there’s one that does buck the trend: the Turkish Süper Lig.

Across the 17 seasons in our study, the Süper Lig’s seasonal average for proportion of total minutes played by players under the age of 22 is 5.6%, which is 2.5 percentage points lower than the next lowest.

On a single-season basis, the lowest proportion recorded in the Süper Lig was 2.7%; again, that’s the lowest of any of the 10 leagues across the 17 campaigns we have data for.

This probably doesn’t come as a huge shock, though, does it? Turkey’s top division has long been like a moth to a flame when it comes to high-profile players who’ve perhaps faded towards the end of their careers but want to maximise their earnings while also still potentially competing in UEFA competitions.

Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and Besiktas are wealthy, very well supported and have become an established route for experienced big names.

At the absolute other end of the scale, we have the Dutch Eredivisie. The Netherlands’ top division comfortably leads the way among Europe’s top 10 leagues for proportion of minutes played by talents aged under 22.

Since 2008-09, the average proportion of minutes played by under-22s over a single season was 23% – so nearly a quarter of all minutes played in the division over that period were attributed to players 21 or younger.

That’s a pretty significant degree of trust in youth. Obviously, there’s a potential case of needs must, but it’s still noteworthy – and considering the standards of some of the academies in the Netherlands, it’s understandable.

There have even been a few seasons over the years that have seen players aged 21 or younger account for more than a quarter of all minutes played. In 2011-12, that figure was 26.4%; in 2014-15 and 2015-16 it hit 25.9% and 25.6%, respectively. The peak came in 2019-20, when 28.3% of all minutes played in the Eredivisie were by under-22s.

It’s a similar – but slightly less extreme – scenario in Belgium. Every season on record (since 2008-09) has seen at least 14.1% of all minutes attributed to players aged 21 or under; to put that figure into context, the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A have never peaked as high.

The Belgian Pro League’s embrace of youth has intensified over the past eight years or so. The proportion of minutes played by under-22s in 2016-17 and 2017-18 was 15.5%, but it grew – almost every year – until hitting 24.5% in 2023-24. It declined slightly to 21.8% last season, but that was still higher than any of Europe’s other top 10 leagues.

Which of the Top Five Leagues Gives Most Minutes to Young Players?

If there’s one of the top five European leagues that relies on young players the most, it’s France’s Ligue 1.

It’s led the way for the highest proportion of minutes played by players aged 21 or younger 10 times in the past 11 seasons, while its overall average for the full 17-year period we’re looking at is 14.8%. That goes up to 16.1% for the past five years.

The 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons have seen Ligue 1’s trust in youth peak, reaching 17.3% and 17.4% respectively.

It’s easy to understand why Ligue 1 might look to young players more than the other top leagues, as it’s generally got the least financial pull of the big five, while it also has a host of clubs renowned for their exceptional academies.

France continuously produces high-quality players, and undoubtedly one reason for that is the fact that many get plenty of opportunities to play when they’re young.

The German Bundesliga isn’t so dissimilar. Over the same 17-year period, the proportion of minutes given to under-22 players is 13%.

However, while Ligue 1 has peaked in this respect over the past two seasons, the Bundesliga has actually been on a downward slope since 2017-18 (17.2%); the average across the following seven campaigns was 11.3%, and 2024-25’s 9.6% was the competition’s lowest of the past 17 years.

As for the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A, there’s not a huge amount separating them.

While England’s top flight has the lowest average (8.1%) over the 17-year period we’re looking at, its 11.3% and 10% over the past two seasons are competition highs.  

Serie A has the next-lowest average (8.4%) over this 17-year period and hasn’t seen huge fluctuations recently, ranging from 8.2% to 9.7% in the past five seasons. And then La Liga (9.2%) comes next for the 17-year average.

Like the Premier League, La Liga has seen a bit of an increase in reliance on younger players in recent years. It dipped to a competition low in 2021-22 with just 6.9% of the league’s minutes attributed to under-22s. However, that went up to 8.7%, then 10.9% and 11.5% in 2024-25, putting it second behind Ligue 1 (17.4%) for the most recent season.

Your next read:

La Liga Gets Younger, Spain Gets Stronger: Spanish Football’s Homegrown Youth Revolution Explained

Which Teams Rely on Young Players the Most?

Another way of analysing trust in youth is by looking at the average age of starting XIs. We can do this over full leagues or at specific clubs, either over several years or individual seasons.

For this, we can go back as far as the 2011-12 season across all of the top 10 European leagues and, unsurprisingly, the youngest league averages are dominated by the Eredivisie, while the Süper Lig accounts for each of the top eight oldest average starting XIs at an overall competition level.

So, since the start of the 2011-12 season, the Eredivisie has had the youngest starting XIs on average (24 years, 256 days), whereas the Turkish Süper Lig has had the oldest (27y, 310d).

But average ages are generally more interesting on a team level.

Again, the Eredivisie very much dominates the top of the rankings for youngest average age of starting XIs over single seasons since 2011-12, accounting for 12 of the 14 youngest.

However, we have to look in France for the absolute youngest, and it was set rather recently.

In 2024-25, Strasbourg’s starting XIs had an average age of 21y, 106d. That’s almost a full year younger than the next lowest on record in the top 10 European leagues (PSV in 2013-14 – 22y, 84d).

Of course, we can’t mention Strasbourg without addressing the elephant in the room. We mentioned the controversial multi-club ownership model at the start of this article, and the Ligue 1 club are in fact closely linked to Chelsea through their BlueCo overlords.

Chelsea, as is well publicised, also have a very aggressive pro-youth policy and have done since Todd Boehly and his consortium (now collectively known as BlueCo) took charge of the club at the end of May 2022. They then acquired Strasbourg in June 2023.

It’s also worth noting that many of the young players who’ve featured for these clubs have been signed from elsewhere for significant sums. While we aren’t suggesting there’s anything wrong with that, this shouldn’t be misconstrued as us trying to suggest their academies are doing all the heavy lifting.

But if it is efficient academies you’re interested in, Valencia have relied heavily on homegrown talent over the past few seasons due to their financial problems. In 2023-24, the average age of their starting XIs was 23y, 274d, which is the youngest on record by any La Liga team over a full season since 2011-12. Their 2022-23 (24y, 91d) and 2024-25 (24y, 190d) teams are also in the top six.

Similarly, in 2024-25, Barcelona won La Liga while having a starting XI average age of 24y, 248d and their squad included 10 graduates of La Masia (nine if you exclude Dani Olmo, who joined from RB Leipzig 10 years after leaving Barcelona as a teenager). That made them comfortably the youngest team on record to win La Liga.

But the youngest team to win one of the top five European leagues since 2011-12 were Paris Saint-Germain in 2024-25. Luis Enrique’s side had an average starting XI age of 23y, 179d in Ligue 1 as they romped to the title – and let’s not forget, they also won the UEFA Champions League and the Coupe de France.

PSG have certainly geared themselves more towards young players over the past couple of years since the likes of Lionel Messi and Neymar left, and it’s a strategy that’s worked emphatically for them.

But some teams have committed to a similar policy for much longer, and obviously spent far less money.

Of the teams who’ve been top-flight ever-presents across Europe’s top 10 leagues since at least 2011-12, AZ stand proud as the club with the youngest starting XI age on average at 23y, 256d, highlighting the trust they’ve consistently placed in youth. Not far behind them are Heerenveen (23y, 310d) and Ajax (23y, 325d).

At the other end of the spectrum, the ever-present team with the oldest average starting XI over the same 14-year period are Fenerbahce. Since 2011-12, the average age of their starting XIs in the league has been 28y, 128d.

Attitudes and priorities clearly vary massively across Europe, with some teams adamant youth is necessary to move forward, while others appear to see it as a hindrance.

While there’s no right or wrong, it seems more and more that bigger clubs are leaning towards squads made up of a young core, and in the cases of PSG and Barcelona, it’s easy to understand why.

Just don’t expect the Turkish giants to stray away from their seemingly deep-rooted love for experienced journeymen.  

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Which European Leagues and Clubs Put Most Faith in Young Players? Opta Analyst.

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