When Bayern Munich decided to bet on Alphonso Davies the Canadian became the most expensive sale in MLS history. What for many was seen as a risky and unlikely gamble turned out to be the best performing left full-back last season. Of course, we don’t want to say that all future stars come from minor leagues like Davies or Haaland -after his time at Molde and then Austria-. What we at Driblab are well aware of is that these secondary markets cannot be underestimated. In our consultancy work for talent identification we understand that we can’t settle for the big leagues that everyone has, nor can we settle for certain minor countries, if you want to be one step ahead of the market you need to have the widest coverage of football. That is Driblab, more than 180.000 players at your disposal so that your scouting has no limits.
FIFA transfer reports for the two past years stated that 22% (in 2019) and 21% (last year) of outgoing transfers came from the Americas (CONCACAF and CONMEBOL), while 50% (in 2019) and 53% (last year) came from Europe. This number illustrates the importance of being able to supply the clubs with players from these associations. Our commitment to help our clients has led us to reach more than 180.000 players. These numbers make us believe that Driblab gives to his clients the coverage that they seek. But this would not be possible without the evolution of our database in the last few years.
The graph below shows the volume of players has increased from 2017 until nowadays, thanks to the progressive growth of coverage on all continents. Four years ago there were less than 20,000 European players on our platform; in April 2021 we have data for more than 100,000. This strong expansion has also happened with Asia, the Americas, Africa and even Oceania. As we shall see in following posts, this is linked to the higher number of leagues covered.
The reality is that in recent years Driblab’s growth has been sustained in terms of data coverage but a milestone differential has been the incorporation of youth level competitions. This growth in our coverage added to years of data in our database makes us have the peak of players by age in the 20 and 21 years. This is precisely one of Driblab’s objectives, to have enough information on young profiles and a sufficiently extensive history to help us make decisions and ensure that our clients are one step ahead in the detection of talent.
We are Driblab, a consultancy specialized in the statistical analysis of players and teams; our work is focused on advising and minimizing risk in professional football decision-making in areas related to talent detection and footballer evaluations. Our database has more than 180,000 players from more than 180 competitions, covering information from all over the world. Here you can learn more about how we work and what we offer.
