Over the past few months, at Driblab we've published a series of investigations aimed at understanding the game through our data. We've studied how fatigue affects shooting accuracy, or what happens after a dribble.
These investigations have led us to interesting conclusions on fairly adventurous topics. In our most recent one, the evolution of the modern goalkeeper, we learned just how global the modern goalkeeper's relevance has become.
Today we're focusing on height. Not the groundbreaking metric you might have hoped for, but revisiting common aspects of the game often produces unexpected results. Just as we've done, actually.
For this, we've used a sample of players from Europe's top five leagues with more than 450 minutes played across the last 10 seasons.
First things first: the main conclusion.
Players are taller than a decade ago. They are one centimeter taller than in 2016. They've gone from 182.3 centimeters to 183.3.
It doesn't seem large at all. In fact, the change is barely 0.53%. A tiny, tiny change in absolute terms. If we think of a 180-centimeter measuring tape, each centimeter we move along it represents a growth of less than 1%.
So, what do we do now? Well, we need to adjust our perspective first.
In 2016, 90% of players fell between 172 and 192 centimeters, a range of roughly 20 centimeters. If the length of our measuring tape were reduced from 180 to 20 centimeters, each of those 20 centimeters would represent 5% of the tape's total length. In other words, each centimeter gained on a 20-centimeter tape represents a 5% increase.
Therefore, from 2016 to 2026, players' height grew by a relative 5%.
Now, we are talking.
It's also worth noting that this growth wasn't progressive. From 2016 to 2020, players barely grew at all, it doesn't even reach 1% over the 20-centimeter range. But over the following five years, the growth reaches 0.82 centimeters, an increase of nearly 4%.
We are sure the COVID-19 pandemic played a decisive role in the rapid height growth from 2020 to 2026, as it gave industry professionals time for research within the football meta.
We are Driblab, there are always a lot of numbers involved. But I feel we've never reached the level we're hitting today. We'll move carefully through the bullet points.
So, to recap. We already know that, on average, players are 5% taller (in relative terms) than in 2016.
But which positions have undergone the most change? At first glance, those that were the tallest in 2016 still lead the way in 2025. In descending order: goalkeepers, defenders, and forwards.
The two positions that, on average, have the tallest players are also the two that have grown the most in relative percentage terms.
If we measure growth relative to each position's range of variation in 2016, center-backs are 10.1% taller than in 2016, and goalkeepers are 13.9% taller.
It's worth being precise about this idea. Center-backs and goalkeepers have the shortest range of variation. That is, 90% of goalkeepers, just like center-backs, fall within a 14-centimeter span. In every other position, the gap between the extremes (between the shortest 5% and the tallest 5%) is much wider.
Therefore, a change within a short range of variation is relatively larger than the same change in another position with a wider range.
This is precisely why a 1.41-centimeter increase in defenders' average height, within a 14-centimeter range, stands out so much.
That said, the range for both positions has barely changed since 2016. It's the extremes who have kept getting taller.
In 2016, 90% of goalkeepers fell between 1.83 and 1.97 meters. In 2025, the floor has risen to 1.85 meters (+2cm) and the ceiling to 1.98 meters (+1cm).
It's the same with defenders: the range stays the same across the decade, but the extremes grow. In 2016, 90% of center-backs fell between 1.80 and 1.94 meters; now they fall between 1.81 and 1.95 meters.
These are, then, two positions that have become homogenized around a very tall height (the average defender measures 188 centimeters, versus 191 for the goalkeeper), with both extremes trending upward.
It will become increasingly rare to see short goalkeepers or center-backs with a height that would be average for other positions.
That's why, for example, Lisandro Martínez's move to Manchester United from Ajax caused such a stir in England. His 175-cm height is 13 centimeters below the average for his position in 2025.
Why have centre-backs got taller?
Within a 14-centimeter range, defenders' average height grew 1.4 centimeters compared to 2016. And yet, despite that growth, defenders now contest fewer aerial duels outside the box.
By contrast, they contest more duels within the boxes. Aerial duels inside both boxes (opponent's and own) are at their highest point of the decade, with each defender contesting 1.6 aerial duels in either box per match.
As the danger teams generate from set pieces grows, and crossing numbers per match hit their decade-high, coaches and staffs now demand taller center-backs to generate more aerial threat, but also to defend against the opponent's aerial threat.
It's been a process of specialization.
There are more potential reasons to explain the change. For a long time, coaches wanted to build the game through the defender's feet (they still have more touches than any other position on the pitch), but as forwards keep evolving, it's become harder for center-backs to control them by imposing their own game than by adapting and reacting to that evolution.
Forwards are becoming stronger and more powerful, if somewhat less refined, and coaches and sporting directors are looking for center-backs who can match those forwards in speed, power, and strength.
Although height isn't always accompanied by greater strength, the intent to combine both may also have driven this growth in defenders' height.
Now that we've talked about goalkeepers and defenders, and how we believe height is influencing center-backs' adaptation to powerful forwards, it's time to look at how height is evolving among forwards.
But have to understand forwards are a more heterogeneous group. Most of them have had a past as wingers, the shortest group by height and the only one whose average height has drecreased.
This means that very different heights get grouped together at the striker position, because 90% of them fall within a much wider range. If most center-backs were grouped within around 14 centimeters, forwards were grouped in 2016 within around 20 centimeters. That range even widened in 2026, to 21.9 centimeters of variation.
So, the Top Five Leagues striker's average height increase of 0.55 cm means very little in absolute terms as well as in relative terms (an increase of just 2.77% since 2016).
However, there's one particularly striking case in the Premier League, which, as we know, is Europe's trend-setter league.
In 2020, Premier League forwards' average height had been suffering a pronounced decline. But after the pandemic, forwards started getting taller and taller. In the 25/26 season, average height stood at approximately 185 centimeters, following a 3-centimeter increase from 2020.
If we calculate the height growth based on 2020's range of variation, Premier League forwards are 15.2% taller now than five years ago!
However, this increase isn't reflected in more aerial duels or more headed shots, even though teams are crossing the ball more than ever (a cross isn't always played in the air). For example, forwards' headed shots have plummeted 25% compared to 2016 and are at their lowest figure of the decade.
Of the 21 tallest forwards of the last decade, 8 arrived in the Premier League within the last three years. 42% of the tallest forwards of the last decade made their debut in the league in the last three years.
That's a trend.
In Europe's most popular league forwards are getting taller but they are not winning more aerial duels or heading the ball more, as the typical old-school armchair fan might assume.
In my view, forwards (and center-backs) are growing because they need to be more powerful. And as we've said, power and height are linked in many cases, though not always, which is why we have to tread carefully with these conclusions.
In a vacuum, height doesn't tell us much. It's only by investigating its evolution across different groups, different leagues, and different contexts that we find information that's real and valuable.
As with most things, there's no absolute answer to these questions. But the approach we've taken to height will help us understand why the things that happen in today's football happen the way they do.
