u/moabusin

Mapped the birth nation of every player who played in Europe's top 5 leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France) last season, sized by real minutes played rather than squad size.

55% of all minutes were from players born outside those 5 countries. Brazil is the single biggest source from outside Europe, 100,646 minutes across 79 players.

France comes out top overall, which surprised me until I checked why: most of it is domestic, 199 of its 309 players are playing in France's own league rather than exported abroad.

Full ranked list of the 14 biggest sources is in the image.

(Source: The Prism, a football scouting & analytics app I've been building. Happy to share more of the underlying numbers if anyone wants a specific country!)

Given the start of the new season is nearly here, I added up how much everyone in the top 5 leagues played in the past year: 2025/26 league minutes plus World Cup minutes.

Kept Goalkeepers in their own box for obvious reasons. Among outfielders it's Elliot Anderson on 3,968, then Guéhi and Enzo Fernández just behind.

The gap is the bit that gets me. The final was 19 July. La Liga starts 15 August, so Cucurella and Cubarsí get 27 days. Cubarsí is 19 and played 3,459 minutes in the last year!

Worth saying these are league minutes only, no cups and no Europe, so every number is a floor rather than a ceiling.

Chart's out of The Prism, a scouting and analytics tool I've been building.

Anyone you'd be worried about? Rice and Xhaka also stand out to me...

Pre-season lull, so thought i'd take a look at which squads are aging... Minutes played rather than squad lists, every club in the top 5 leagues, 2025/26.

The bit that matters more than raw age is the cross: old core and nothing coming through. That's the shaded corner, 14 clubs, with Rayo, Mainz and Lazio the most extreme and Villa and Everton the ones that surprised me.

League-wide, La Liga is much the oldest at 31% median minutes to over-30s. The Premier League is the youngest at 17%.

Old on its own clearly isn't a problem though. Inter won Serie A with 39% of minutes going to over-30s, and Lens finished 2nd in Ligue 1 with a (seemingly) barbell squad, 43% over-30 and 27% under-23 and barely anything in between.

Chart's out of The Prism, a scouting & analytics tool I've been building.

Which of those 14 surprised you? Villa and Everton stand out to me but I don't watch enough Rayo to know whether it's just how they're built.

Been doing some analysis using a scouting tool im building by pulling transfer fees and season stats through the same pipeline, and I checked something quick: does what a club pays track what the player actually did last season?

Below is a chart of every completed permanent transfer of €20m or more between two top-5 league clubs since 1st June. 33 players, €1.68bn. Method and exclusions are in the chart footnote.

Rank correlation between fee and goal contributions per 90: −0.11. Attackers alone: −0.20. Seems like little to no relationship in there.

• Donyell Malen went to Roma for €25m off 18 goals and 3 assists. Anthony Gordon went to Barcelona for €80m off 6 and 2.
• Sandro Tonali is the third-biggest fee of the window at €108m. Last season: 0 goals, 2 assists, 35 appearances.
• Morgan Rogers is the biggest fee at €138m and was also the most productive midfielder in the set. The fee looks to carry no information either way.

The obvious caveat is the interesting part: goals and assists don't measure a holding midfielder or a centre-back properly. But it cuts both ways, because clubs are also paying attacker money for attackers who aren't producing.

Numbers and chart are out of The Prism, the scouting & analytics tool I've been building.

Keen to see people's thoughts on the fee's we've seen during this window, yes it does seem like most are inflated, but what are really the trends (if any)?

In spirit of today's World Cup final, I plotted every team that reached the knockouts on two things: how clinical its attack has been (goals as a share of shots taken) and how resistant its defence has been (shots on target faced that it kept out).

Spain: 10.8% of shots scored, 90% of shots on target faced kept out. Argentina: 17.0% scored, 56% kept out.

Who do you think takes the throne today?

>Source: Built off The Prism, an AI-powered football analytics app i've built. Chart: Python/matplotlib. "Attack" = goals ÷ total shots; "defence" = 1 − (goals conceded ÷ shots on target faced), i.e. the share of on-target shots a team kept out. Population is the 32 teams that reached the Round of 32. No xG in this feed - this is shots and shots-on-target only, so read it as a shot-quantity picture, not a chance-quality one!

Been pulling player-level finishing data across the whole World Cup and one comparison jumped out that a plain Golden Boot table completely hides: shot volume and end product have come apart badly for some of the biggest names.

Took every player with 12+ shots in the tournament (102 matches, through the semis) and plotted shots taken against goals scored.

The cleanest example: Lamine Yamal and Harry Kane have taken the exact same number of shots (23 each) which is the joint-most of anyone outside Messi (34) and Mbappé (33). Kane's scored 6. Yamal's scored 1, with 0 assists across 7 games.

He's not the only one down there. Kevin De Bruyne (20 shots, 1 goal) and Luis Díaz (19 shots, 1 goal) have been just as wasteful, and Michael Olise has taken 17 shots without scoring once (though he's at least got 5 assists to show for it). At the other end, Erling Haaland's been the most clinical high-volume shot-taker with 20 shots, 7 goals, and 65% of them on target.

Built this off match-level shot data I pull automatically in a football data tool I've been putting together (The Prism).

Whats everyone's thoughts on the finishing at this World Cup so far?

So theres two things layered into one chart here. First, the overall, whole-tournament number: 55 of the 283 goals scored at this World Cup (19.4%, nearly 1 in 5) came from a substitute.

Second, when you look at just the goals scored within each specific window of a match, subs' share climbs steadily: 10.9% at the hour mark, 20.5% by 75', up to 53.3% in the final 15 minutes (+ stoppage time).

Pre-half-time is excluded entirely since subs are barely used that early (9 of 974 tournament-wide substitutions happened before minute 30).

What's everyones thoughts here. Does this show the importance of squad depth in this World Cup, especially with the weather conditions?

Tools: The Prism, an AI football analytics app I'm working on, pulling all 102 completed matches, all 283 non-own goals. Two distinct denominators used deliberately, both stated on the chart: the 19.4% figure is subs' share of every goal scored this tournament; the by-window figures (10.9% → 53.3%) are subs' share of the goals scored within that specific window only. Chart: Python/matplotlib.

Pulled every goal from the 101 completed matches (including today's semi final) of this World Cup and grouped them by the 15-minute block they were scored in.

The last 15 minutes of regular time (76–90, including added-on time) have produced 77 goals - more than a quarter of all 296, and nearly double any other block on the chart. The second half overall has produced 35% more goals than the first.

I kept extra-time goals from the knockout AET games as a separate bar, since they come from a much smaller set of matches and it'd be misleading to fold them into the 76–90 block.

Pretty cool to see this visualised properly!

Built this off The Prism, an AI football analytics app I've built to allow us to visualise things like this and a bunch more. Data + method in the comments.

Pulled the venue history for all 4 World Cup 2026 semifinalists - group stage through to the semifinal - and mapped the distance each has actually traveled.

France has barely left the Northeast: MetLife, Lincoln Financial Field, and Gillette Stadium, each visited twice, just 2,398 miles total including the flight to the semifinal. Spain has covered 6,446 miles (2.7x as far) including a trip to Guadalajara, Mexico, before swinging back through LA and Texas twice.

England (5,699 mi) and Argentina (3,507 mi) sit in between, both bouncing repeatedly through the middle of the country. Cool to see that the AT&T Stadium in Arlington has now hosted a match for 3 of these 4 teams, and it also hosts Tuesday's France–Spain semifinal.

Interesting data to see and also considering this World Cup has less rest time than usual between games.

Built this off The Prism, an AI football scouting app I'm building that tracks everything football related. Data + method in the comments!

So i looked at the 16 teams with the most matches played this tournament (i.e. everyone that got past the Round of 32), across all 97 of the 104 completed matches so far. Plotted fouls committed per match against cards drawn per match for each.

Raw foul counts turn out to be a weak predictor of cards. The clearest case is Egypt and Argentina, who've fouled at literally the same rate (59 fouls in 5 matches each, 11.8/match) but sit on opposite ends of the card count: Egypt 12, Argentina 3.

Switzerland and Morocco foul more than the group average and still land near the bottom for cards; Egypt, Canada and Paraguay get carded well above what their foul count alone would predict.

Genuinely curious what people who've actually watched these teams think: is Egypt's disciplinary record down to how they defend (last-man fouls, tactical fouling high up the pitch), or has officiating just been stricter on them specifically? Especially in that Argentina match??

Data + tool in the comments.

Been pulling match-level discipline data across the World Cup and noticed something that doesn't show up in a plain "most cards" leaderboard: foul volume barely predicts card volume (apparently).

Looked at the 16 teams with the most matches played this tournament (i.e. everyone still standing past the Round of 32), across all 97 of the 104 completed matches so far. Plotted fouls committed per match against cards drawn per match for each.

The cleanest example: Egypt and Argentina have fouled at the exact same rate - 59 fouls in 5 matches each, 11.8 per match. Egypt have been carded 12 times. Argentina 3 times. Same fouling, 4x the cards.

It's not just those two. Switzerland and Morocco foul more than the group median but sit near the bottom for cards. Egypt, Canada and Paraguay are the opposite: carded well above what their foul count alone would suggest.

Built this off match-level fouls/cards data I pull automatically in a scouting & analytics tool I've been putting together, (The Prism).

Genuinely curious what people who've actually watched these teams think: is Egypt's disciplinary record down to how they defend (last-man fouls, tactical fouling high up the pitch), or has officiating just been stricter on them specifically? Especially in that Argentina game??

With the Round of 16 wrapped and the quarterfinals up next (France–Morocco, Spain–Belgium, Norway–England, Argentina–Switzerland), I plotted the 8 remaining teams by goals scored vs goals conceded across the tournament so far.

Spain's the standout: zero goals conceded in five matches, including their knockout win over Portugal. France is the most complete side left - the most goals of anyone in the group (14) and the second-tightest defense (2 conceded). Norway's the outlier: 12 goals but the leakiest defense here by some distance (9 conceded) - they're through on scoring power alone (Haaaaaland).

Built this off The Prism, an AI-powered football intelligence app I'm working on that tracks stats like this live across the tournament. More in the comments.