European Football Minutes
Are Football player having longer career?
With Luka Modric still going strong at Real Madrid even at the age of 38, it’s natural to wonder whether football players are enjoying longer careers in modern football. Karim Benzema won his Ballon d’Or at 34, Cristiano Ronaldo continues to thrive in the Saudi Pro League, and it’s still hard to find any player better than Lionel Messi. Messi, who won his last Ballon d’Or at 34 and is the current holder as well as a World Cup winner, exemplifies this trend. Zlatan Ibrahimović played until he was 40, and other stars like Sergio Ramos, Franck Ribéry, Arjen Robben, and Manuel Neuer had successful careers into their late 30s. Even Ashley Young, despite not being young anymore, is still playing in the Premier League well into his 30s. But are these players just outliers, the exceptions that every generation has?
To explore this question, I collected statistics on footballers from the top divisions in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, analyzing their performance over the last 12 years. The data spans from 2010 to 2022 and focuses primarily on the star players of the past decade. My goal was to compare how older players and younger players in 2010 have evolved over the years.
For now, I’m not conducting any formal statistical analysis but rather observing the trends. The gganimate tool in R has been incredibly useful for visualizing these trends and understanding how they play out. With the data and tools in hand, let’s see what the trends reveal.
The data I have includes key statistics such as minutes played, goals, assists, Man of the Match (MOTM) awards, cards, and more. One parameter that I believe offers valuable insight into how a player is valued by their team is the number of minutes they play. This metric is consistent across all positions, unlike goals, which are skewed towards players who play further up the field. While appearances could also be a good indicator, young players often make numerous appearances with limited minutes during the early stages of their careers. This is similarly true for older players who may no longer have the stamina to play the full 90 minutes.
Given this, let’s take a closer look at how many minutes players are on the field, depending on their age during a particular season.
1. Average Minutes Played by Players of different age in 12 seasons
First, let’s start by looking at the average minutes played. The visualization shows the average minutes played by players of different ages over 12 seasons. Surprisingly, the distribution of average minutes played is fairly uniform across all ages in most seasons. Even more surprising is that players over 40 occasionally have the highest average minutes played. This anomaly might warrant a more in-depth analytical investigation.
Plotly
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2. Counts and Appearance by Player of different age in 12 season
I analyzed two more visuals: the number of players of each age who actually play in each year, and the appearances made by players of each age group in each year. It becomes clear that both older and very young players are fewer in number and also make fewer appearances. This helps explain the earlier visualization where older players appeared to have high average minutes. The reason is that only a small number of older players are active, and those who do play are likely skilled enough to take on more minutes, thereby skewing the average. Essentially, a few exceptional players are driving the statistics higher, making it seem as though players in their 40s are performing better, when in fact, it’s just a small, select group.
There is a weird noticeable shift on the total counts/ apperance towards left in the year 2012 and 2020. However, it is clear that most of the active players are in their 20s and early 30s.
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3. Total Minutes Played by Player of different age in 12 season
Now, instead of visualizing average minutes played, I focused on total minutes played. Unsurprisingly, the distribution is normal, with most players aged 24 to 27 having the highest total minutes. I do observe a slight extension towards higher ages, indicating more minutes played by older players, but the difference is small and likely insignificant. From the graph, there doesn’t seem to be any strong evidence that older players have been playing significantly more minutes over the last decade.
There is a weird noticeable shift on the total minutes played towards left in the year 2012 and 2020.
Plotly
Animate
Based on this short visualization, I think it is safe to say that there hasn’t been any significant systematic change in players’ career lifespans in modern football. However, as mentioned earlier, this is not a formal statistical test and does not involve a deep study that controls for various variables. The purpose of this blog is more about showcasing the power of gganimate and plotly in R and how these tools can effectively visualize data over time.