How does the Finnish League compare with the rest of Europe?

Every so often, we like to throw some numbers and statistics your way, and it's that time again. The splendid Football Observatory have released their study of 31 leagues around Europe (including Finland), based on factors such as age, nationality and squad size. Some of the numbers may prove quite surprising in context, others will purely seek to build on what you already know.

The Football Observatory study, source of these facts and figures

The data relates to players active on October 1st 2012, so cast your minds back that far. The leagues concerned were grouped geographically (Finland placed in the Northern section), and by league strength, calculated by average UEFA rankings over five years (Finland in group 5 of 5).

Squad size

Finland has seen the biggest decrease in squad number against the previous year, with the average Veikkausliiga squad containing 22.4 players, down 1.7 since the previous year. This was also indicative of squad shrinkage across Northern Europe, the four Nordic leagues all appear in the six nations at the bottom of that graph. This could be explained simply by finances, and clubs not being willing/able to keep large squads of players during a season. 

KuPS coach Esa Pekonen bemoaned his small squad (and an increased fixture list) last summer when his side were playing Europa League qualifiers every midweek. In 2011, the league structure changed to increase league matches from 26 to 33, putting extra pressure on the smaller squads, allowing for less rotation to combat fatigue. That some clubs struggle to fill a bench for league games is a sign that perhaps this needs to be monitored.

 Big bench, not enough players (photo courtesy of Futisblogi Puoliaika)

Squad age
 
Of the 31 leagues surveyed, Finland's average squad age was was the 27th youngest, at 24.89 years old (as of October 1st), an increase since 2011. The survey points that goalkeepers and defenders are likely to be older anyway. The average age of Veikkausliiga players is 3 and a half years younger than those in the Cypriot league, and 18 months younger than the Swedish league.

It's also indicative when measured against the strengths of the other leagues, where the 1st group of leagues (England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) have the oldest average leagues. Experience over youth? HJK's apparent policy of signing experienced Finnish players (Forssell and Tainio) could yet skew the figures for next year.

HJK's average age plummeted when Litmanen left

 
Number of new signings

Another area where Finland are amongst the lowest - Finnish clubs made, on average, 7.3 new signings in 2012, down from 10.4 in 2011. Again the Nordic clubs in general have lower turnovers, with the four leagues featuring in the bottom nine, Danish clubs signing only 5.8 players. The Europe-wide breakdown shows that nearly half of the forwards included signed for their current club in 2012, and that 59% of transfers occurred between clubs from the same country. Finnish clubs sign exactly half the number of players of the nation with the most signings (Bulgaria, with 14.6 signings).

On average, Eastern European squads sign the most new players, almost twice as many as Northern European clubs. In a separate study by the Football Observatory, they show that amongst the top 5 leagues, the teams with the fewer signings general perform better - in Spain, France and England, the champions of each country had a low average of new signings in their starting XI per game. A premium on continuity?

 HJK's new signing for 2013 Mikael Forssell

Club trained players

The amount of club-trained players is higher in Northern Europe than the rest of the continent, almost double the amount in Southern and Eastern leagues. The percentage of Veikkausliiga players trained by their clubs is 33.8%, a figure beaten only by Slovakia and Croatia. Compare this to Italy, where the figure is 7.8%, this shows that Finnish clubs place a greater emphasis on developing their own players - again perhaps by necessity over choice (Barcelona have the highest figure by club, but then they can legitimately field a starting XI of club trained players). 

The figure does increase amongst the lower-ranked leagues, 30.3% against 17.2% in the top five - another indicator that the stronger leagues can use their (generally) greater financial pull to attract the best players from other clubs and countries.

 The TPS junior (age 11) side - the stars of tomorrow?

 
International players per league

Perhaps one to come back to in a couple of years, but a positive sign - in the Northern leagues, 11.2% of players are considered active internationals (they represented their country between January 1st and October 1st 2012). In Finland this number is 6.7%, but this has risen from 3.2% since 2011. A large number of representatives of these are of African descent (33.8% of Africans in Europe are internationals), but further analysis of any Finland squad from 2012 will see very few domestic-based players. 

The King's Cup squad was heavily Finnish based, so this number will probably increase this year too. The country with the largest number of internationals is England, with 42.5% of Premier League players current internationals (and that wouldn't include people like Rio Ferdinand, Michael Owen or Paul Scholes).

Mika Ojala has left Finland to play in the Swedish league

Foreign players

As part of a (yet to be published) analysis of Veikkausliiga goalscorers, we discovered that 70.2% of goalscorers in the last three seasons were Finnish. This study correlates nicely, in that 23% of Veikkausliiga players in 2012 were expatriates (meaning 77% of Veikkausliiga players are from Finland). Contrast this to Cyprus, where 74.2% of players are from other countries… In Northern Europe as a whole, the number increased from 26.3% to 28.4%, with Norway and Denmark seeing the biggest increases. 

Across Europe, 44.3% of forward players are foreign, perhaps a sign of the elite non-Europeans plying their trade on the continent (Messi, Ronaldo, Falcao will all be expatriates). Brazil make up the greatest number across Europe (515), but some surprising countries are high on the list, with Serbia third (202) and Nigeria eighth (117). Across Nordic leagues, the highest concentration of expatriates are Western European (45%) and African (28%).

Brazilian striker Rafael scores for Lahti

The full study is available online for a bargainous €199, so I'll happily accept donations if anyone is interested in player heights or stability of squad... If you want to read the free excerpt on line, follow this link.