Foreign recruits
Football is a global game, and the economics of the sport in Europe mean that clubs from the continent’s major divisions are able to purchase players from all four corners of the planet.
Using data from the CIES Football Observatory, this slideshow ranks teams from Europe’s five major leagues (La Liga, the Premier League, the Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A) on the percentage of players signed from foreign sides. The figure is worked out by dividing international acquisitions by the overall number of players who have represented the club in the league this season, and multiplying that amount by 100.
As an example, Chile international Alexis Sanchez doesn’t count among Manchester United’s imports because he joined from fellow Premier League outfit Arsenal, but Victor Lindelof – bought from Benfica – does.
20. Wolfsburg, 53.8%
Former Chelsea defender Jeffrey Bruma, signed by Wolfsburg from PSV in 2016 and pictured above, is one of 14 players to have represented the Bundesliga side this season after moving to the Volkswagen Arena from a foreign club.
Liverpool loanee Divock Origi is another who joined the German outfit from overseas, with Josuha Guilavogui (Atletico Madrid), Landry Dimata (Oostende) and Riechedly Bazoer (Ajax) also arriving from other European countries last summer. Yunus Malli and Jakub Blaszczykowski may have been born outside Germany, but both men were purchased from Wolfsburg’s domestic rivals.
17= Bayern Munich, 54.2%
Bayern Munich defended their signing of Leon Goretzka from Schalke – the midfielder will move to the Allianz Arena on a free transfer when his contract expires in the summer – by suggesting they were acting in the Bundesliga’s best interests by keeping him in German football.
Perhaps Bayern also felt the same when they added ex-Hoffenheim striker Sandro Wagner to their ranks in January 2018, but more than half of the players to have pulled on the Bavarians’ shirt this season were bought from foreign clubs, including Arjen Robben (Real Madrid), Franck Ribery (Marseille) and, more recently, Corentin Tolisso (Lyon).
17= Stuttgart, 54.2%
Thirteen of the 24 players Stuttgart have made use of in the Bundesliga this season were signed from outside Germany, including Arsenal’s loanee striker Takuma Asano, ex-Estudiantes midfielder Santiago Ascacibar and former Leicester goalkeeper Ron-Robert Zieler, formerly of Hannover.
After winning promotion to the top tier in 2017, the Swabians added 11 players to their squad – four of those came from fellow German sides, but the majority were previously based elsewhere.
16. Celta Vigo, 55%
Celta Vigo have only used 20 players in La Liga in 2017/18, and just over half of those (11) originally joined the Spanish club from abroad. Maxi Gomez, the Uruguayan purchased from Defensor Sporting, and Emre Mor, the former Borussia Dortmund wide man, both made such a move in summer 2017, just as Pione Sisto, John Guidetti and Facundo Roncaglia had done before them.
Of the Spaniards at Balaidos, six graduated from the club’s academy, two were signed from La Liga sides, and two were captured from overseas. Striker Iago Aspas belongs to both the first and the last groups, having left boyhood club Celta for Liverpool in 2013 before returning two years later.
13= Southampton, 56.5%
Southampton have developed a reputation for buying low and selling high in the last few seasons, with Virgil van Dijk the latest player to be shifted by Saints for a sizeable profit. The Dutchman, now at Liverpool, joined the south coast side from Celtic back in 2015 – and that’s far from the only time Southampton have looked beyond England when it comes to new recruits.
In terms of those who have played for the club in 2017/18, 13 of 23 – including Cedric Soares, Mario Lemina, Dusan Tadic and Sofiane Boufal – were bought from foreign clubs.
13= Lille, 56.5%
Marcelo Bielsa may no longer be Lille boss, but he was the man in charge of the club’s transfer policy in summer 2017. Thiago Maia, Luiz Araujo, Thiago Mendes, Edgar Ie, Xeka and Ezequiel Ponce were all aged 25 or younger when they pitched up at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy – and each of the sextet joined Les Dogues from non-French clubs.
12. Marseille, 57.7%
Of the seven signings Marseille made in summer 2017, only one – striker Valere Germain, formerly of Monaco – came from a fellow Ligue 1 club.
Steve Mandanda (Crystal Palace), Luiz Gustavo (Wolfsburg), Jordan Amavi (Aston Villa) Kostas Mitroglou (Benfica), Aymen Abdennour (Valencia), Adil Rami (Sevilla) and Florian Thauvin (Newcastle) were all acquired from abroad, meaning over half of Rudi Garcia’s current squad arrived at the Stade Velodrome from outside France.
11. Huddersfield, 60%
David Wagner became Huddersfield’s first non-British or Irish manager when he took charge at the John Smith’s Stadium in November 2015. The Terriers’ subsequent recruitment has had an international flavour; Town signed German trio Chris Löwe, Christopher Schindler and Collin Quaner before their promotion season, and Steve Mounie, Laurent Depoitre and Elias Kachunga were later added to the squad to aid Wagner’s top-flight survival bid.
10. Arsenal, 60.9%
Arsenal signed Rob Holding, Petr Cech and Aaron Ramsey from clubs within the English football pyramid, but those three players are in a minority in the Gunners’ dressing room. Indeed, 14 of the 23 footballers to have represented the north Londoners in the Premier League in 2017/18 were previously based overseas.
The addition of Henrikh Mkhitaryan from Manchester United – as well as the fact Alexis Sanchez, signed by Arsene Wenger from Barcelona in 2014, has moved in the opposite direction – means Arsenal’s position in this ranking will change following the Armenian’s league debut.
8. Werder Bremen, 63.6%
After 24 years at Copenhagen – split between the youth ranks and first team – Thomas Delaney (pictured above) joined Werder Bremen in summer 2017. The Germans also purchased Ishak Belfodil, Jiri Pavlenka and Ludwig Augustinsson from various foreign clubs in the same transfer window, while Jerome Gondorf arrived from 2. Bundesliga outfit Darmstadt.
6= Udinese, 66.7%
As Watford fans will affirm, the Pozzo family who own both the Hornets and Udinese preside over an extensive scouting network. Alexis Sanchez, Juan Cuadrado and David Pizarro are just some of the gems the Serie A side have uncovered in recent years, so it’s no surprise that the majority of their current squad were signed from other countries.
6= PSG, 66.7%
As you probably know by now, PSG smashed the world-record transfer fee when they signed Neymar from Barcelona for around £200m in August 2017; the Brazilian joined Edinson Cavani, Thiago Silva, Marco Verratti and Marquinhos in the group of Rouge-et-Bleu players acquired from abroad (all four of those players, incidentally, previously plied their trade in Italy).
Many members of PSG’s French contingent, including Presnel Kimpembe, Adrien Rabiot and Alphonse Areola , came through the club’s youth ranks, although Layvin Kurzawa, Kylian Mbappe and the lesser-spotted Hatem Ben Arfa were bought from domestic rivals.
5. RB Leipzig, 68.2%
RB Leipzig have a policy of only signing players under the age of 24, but they’re much less strict on where those prospects come from. Only seven of the 22 footballers they have used in the Bundesliga in 2017/18 were purchased from fellow German outfits, including Timo Werner, Marcel Halstenberg and Willi Orban.
Of those captured from foreign sides, several – Naby Keita, Konrad Leimer and Dayot Upamecano among them – were brought in from sister side Red Bull Salzburg. Others, such as Bruma, Jean-Kevin Augustin and Marcel Sabitzer, were signed from clubs with no relation to Leipzig.
4. Sevilla, 70.4%
Just over 70% of the 27 footballers to have played for Sevilla in the 2017/18 La Liga season were previously based outside Spain. Among them are first-team regulars Clement Lenglet, Guido Pizarro, Wissam Ben Yedder and Luis Muriel, although Sergio Escudero and Pablo Sarabia have started the majority of the Rojiblancos’ league matches after being brought in from fellow Spanish sides.
Jesus Navas and Ever Banega are in their second spells at Sevilla, but both were re-signed from abroad – the former from Manchester City and the latter from Inter.
3. Chelsea, 72.3%
Chelsea captured Danny Drinkwater from Leicester and Willy Caballero from Manchester City last summer, with the duo joining Victor Moses, Gary Cahill, N’Golo Kante and Ethan Ampadu in the group of Blues players who were acquired from other English sides.
Chelsea could slip to fourth in the list once Ross Barkley, who arrived from Everton in the January transfer window, makes his first Premier League appearance for the defending champions, – but on the other hand, the proposed signings of Edin Dzeko and Emerson Palmieri from Roma could increase the west Londoners’ percentage once more.
2. Lazio, 73.9%
Lazio climbed to second in the table when Chelsea fielded Willy Caballero in the Premier League for the first time on January 21. Seventeen of the 23 players to have appeared for the Biancocelesti in Serie A this season were brought in from overseas, including Senad Lulic from Young Boys, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic from Genk and former Liverpool midfielders Lucas Leiva and Luis Alberto.
1. Man City, 81.8%
Only four of the 22 players to have represented City in the Premier League this season were signed from fellow Premier League outfits: John Stones, Fabian Delph, Kyle Walker and Raheem Sterling. All four members of that English quartet have been heavily involved for Pep Guardiola’s side this term, but the table-toppers have tended to look overseas when it comes to new signings.
