The 522nd CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 50 top divisions worldwide according to the percentage of minutes played by U21 footballers eligible for the national team of the league’s country over the 2025 calendar year. The Australian A-League Men’s leads the rankings (17.7% of minutes).
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Serbia’s Super Liga (15.8%) and Danmark’s Superliga (11.7%) round up the podium of the leagues where U21 eligible footballers played the greatest proportion of minutes in 2025. Among the five major European leagues, the figures range from 7.8% for France’s Ligue 1 (17th overall) to 1.9% for Italy’s Serie A (second lowest figure), with a particularly low rate also in the English Premier League (2.4%).
The Post also presents the number of U21 players eligible for the countries of the 50 leagues analysed who played in one of these championships in 2025. In this case, Argentina (213 U21 eligible players for a total of 112,455 minutes and a cumulative experience* of 74,236) is ahead of Colombia (185, 88,706 minutes, 50,047) and Brazil (173, 73,325 minutes, 44,558). France is fourth in terms of number of players and minutes and third in terms of cumulative experience.
* The cumulative experience was calculated by weighting the total number of minutes by the average sporting level of the matches played according to this method.
