So this ranking takes into account the number of professional players playing in Europe out of the center.

Whats your impressions ?

Where is Dortmund?

Ajax should be higher ! where is Dortmund ? Real Madrid should be lower and Barcelona as well. If Barcelona has such great academy how come they do not replace those defenders who barely can keep a clean sheet with 75% possesion week and week out ?

Also , how come River Plate is on this list ? Are they European Club ?

@Marcus "elite footballers for Europe" not from Europe

west ham are awesome and are always producing english talent. Good to see we can do some things right.

@Marcus : relax mate, if it was about scouting, Chelsea would be standing at top 3 with probably benfica and Porto.
For Real Madrid and Barça ranks, many Liga players were formed in La masia / Cantera and are actually playing in other Spanish teams, France is well known for his youth product as well.
You made a good point, we are not producing the best defenders, no doubt about it. But we produce the finest midlefielders you can find in Europe.

The ranking is made by special criterias writen above, and it takes only quantity of production not the quality.
We can discuss about quality, but most of the ranks seem fine to me as the ranks in the nations are respected.

Manchester and Arsenal as the best in England.
Lyon and Rennes in France, ( Claire fontaine is not ranked as youth producers, only teams are ranked)
Barça, Madrid teams and basque teams Sociedad and Bilbao in Spain.

Real Madrid have produced a huge mass of talent in recent years. I can't believe that people are oblivious enough to not know their players. The following players have all spent some time with Real Madrid's youth teams or come directly out of their academy

Jese Rodriguez (RM)
Alvaro Morata (RM)
Alvaro Arbeloa (RM)
Iker Casillas (RM)
Diego Lopez (RM)
Roberto Soldado (Spurs)
Juan Mata (Man United)
Alvaro Negredo (Man City)
Borja Valero (Fiorentina)
Javi Garcia (Man City)
Juanfran (Atletico)
Esteban Cambiasso (Inter)
Jose Callejon (Napoli)
Dani Parejo (Valencia)
Alvaro Dominguez (Gladbach)

@Marcus

Barcelona don't have a great academy? Ridiculous. They have one of the best in the world. Where do you think Pique, Valdes, Puyol, Alba, Fabregas, Iniesta, Busquets, Xavi, Messi, Pedro, Arteta, Bartra, Deulofeu, Reina, Thiago, Thiago Motta, and Joan Verdu come from? You could make a full international squad capable of competing for the World Cup itself just from Barcelona youth products. Therefore, your statement is completely invalid. Barcelona have the best youth system in the world.

And for your information, Barcelona have kept 18 clean sheets so far, and Chelsea have kept 19. Not much of a difference, huh?

^ True, and we are more exposed to goals than other teams. Its our playing style, we will see if it deserves us this year in CL, we probably cant win against Mourinhos defensive tactics but you never know...

Very impressive seeing how many French clubs there are in the top 20.

^ You are right, and i think this explains well why France, Spain Germany and Italy had good results in international competitions ( Euro and World Cup ).
Youth production has a direct impact on national teams level.

^Let's not also forget Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, and Argentina. They've produced some fantastic players through their youth system recently.

Agreed, both Belgium and Netherlands are producing some classy players comparing to their few population...
Netherlands are the best in Europe if we talk pourcentage...
Raheem Sterling, Barkley, Luke Shaw and many others are good in England, they should get introduced to the national team.

@Dyanstian98

Real Madrid has a great academy but should lower. What year is
data for? For last 10 years?

Are you talking about players who were ran over by Bayern 7-0 in
aggregate ... ooh alright? I only said it should be lower. I don't
think it is best. It is one of the best. Barcelona had a system that made those
players superb. No denying individually there are 4 great players I admire most,
Messi, Xavi and Iniesta, Valdes. Fabregas and Pique became who they are in
other clubs, they left when they were very young. Calling Arteta as elite is laughable!
Only reason why he plays in Arsenal because arsenal does not have a proper
defensive mid! He would not make a bench in Chelsea, not even mentioning Barcelona!

If we are talking about ELITE footballers then let’s judge them accordingly.
If this data is for overall great academies in history of football
then Where is Sporting Lisbon , Ajax , Sao Paolo , Santos , Manchester City has
produced some quality as well , Liverpool and etc. ?

The most Shocking to me is Ajax standing! Ajax has produced some
of the greatest players and still producing some great talents that will go on
to become one of the best in the world! Ajax is the model of developing players
that was adopted by many clubs including Barcelona! Even the guy who helped to
make La Masia among the best is from Ajax!

Just because recently La Masia hit a jackpot with players and
system of football that worked for 4 years, they are considered best? Please people!
Your opinion is driven by the media that overhyped it! This data is bias.

Why are you talking about Arteta ? Do you prefer Alcantara instead ?
This data is bias because you dont like it ?
Look at the source, i gave you facts, please do the same your comment is pointless.

@tiki_taka

Wow Tiki just recently you were preaching me about how history
facts are written to back particular country or party politically and now you
presenting almost samething claiming that source is legit . Why don't you just
sit and count it yourself , how many Balon Dor winners , how many European
champions , Fifa best player awards , Champions league and etc trophies , players
who came from Ajax won ! Preaching me about doing your own research while you ,
yourself relying on one data from one source ... smh you just fully contradicted
and discredited yourself .

Ok, now go do something else.
edit : Are you multiaccounter ? 5 like in less than 2 minutes ? We are actually the only ones connected here at this time....
You disappoint me.

REVEALED: Barcelona No1 for producing players for clubs in Europe’s elite leagues
By Nick Harris
SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year
13 December 2012

Barcelona have produced more footballers currently earning a living as first-team players across Europe’s elite ‘Big 5′ divisions than any other club in the world, Sportingintelligence can reveal.

The Spanish giants have been responsible for the development of 38 players at top-flight clubs in either Spain’s La Liga, England’s Premier League, Italy’s Serie A, Germany’s Bundesliga 1 or France’s Ligue 1.

The definition of ‘produced’ for these purposes means that a player spent three or more years within the development programme of the club in question specifically between the ages of 15 and 21, which are considered a footballer’s most important ‘formative’ years.

The vast majority of players can cite one club where they were developed. In the case of this study, the backgrounds of 2,286 players at the 98 ‘Big 5′ clubs have been considered. Of those, 2,170 were ‘products’ of one specific club and the rest (116) can be attributed to two clubs developing the player for three years each during the formative period.

The data for this study comes from the CIES Football Observatory in Switzerland. For more details about them, see the foot of this article.
In total, 805 different clubs around the world from all levels of football have ‘produced’ at least one of the 2,286 players each.

Of Barcelona’s 38 players, 36 of them had Barca as their ‘primary producer’, or in other words Barca were the first club where they spent three or more years between 15 and 21.
They include Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Carles Puyol among others.Fourteen of the 38 are still with Barca while 24 play elsewhere, including Chelsea’s Oriol Remeu, Liverpool’s Pepe Reina and Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta.
Two of Barca’s 38 ‘products’, Isaac Cuenca and Cristian Tello, are counted as ‘secondary’ products having been previously been with CF Reus and Espanyol respectively.

Barca have nonetheless also had them for the requisite period.After Barcelona, the most prolific producers of talent for the ‘Big 5′ are Lyon of France (31 players), Real Madrid (29), Rennes (24) and Manchester United (24).Those top five clubs (of 805, or 0.6 per cent) have produced six per cent of the players, or 10 times as many as is ‘typical’.
The top 42 clubs (of 805, or five per cent) have produced 30 per cent of the players.The top 42 and the breakdown of the players they have produced is in this first graphic.

Manchester United have produced more players than any other English club for the 98 clubs currently in the ‘Big 5′ divisions: 24 of them, nine of whom are still at United (including Evans, Giggs, Cleverley, Scholes and Welbeck) and 15 of whom playing elsewhere, from Phil Neville at Everton to Kieran Richardon at Fulham, Ron-Robert Zieler at Hannover 96, Paul Pogba at Juventus and Ryan Shawcross at Stoke City.Four of United’s 24 products are ‘secondary’ products, with United playing a key role in developing them after another club had had them for an earlier chunk of the 15-21 formative years.

These four are the Da Silva brothers, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo.The second graphic isolates only the top English teams in terms of producing players currently in the ‘Big 5′.United are followed by Arsenal (20), Aston Villa (15) and Tottenham (15) then West Ham and Newcastle (13 each) and Manchester City, Southampton and Chelsea (all 12).Notable in this graphic is how some key lower-league clubs have punched well above their weight to produce players for elite clubs. Luton Town of the Conference produced players now at Southampton, West Ham, Wigan and Norwich, for example, while Crewe have produced players now earning their corn at Manchester United, Aston Villa, Sunderland and West Brom.

It should be stressed: these figures only relate to current first-team players in the ‘Big 5′ divisions in Europe; players who were at the ‘producing’ clubs for at least 3 years between 15 and 21, and have played league football for one of the current 98 clubs this season.

Sportingintelligence has a separate research project underway to assess which clubs have produced the most professionals within the English game (all four main divisions), and is exploring ways to broaden this to discover which clubs globally produce the most players for the professional industry as a whole. This may take some time!

Outside of the top 42 producers, the rest of the 805 clubs who have produced players in the Big 5 are listed (simply by the number of players) at the bottom of this article from Mallorca to CAI Comodoro Rivadavia via Stoke, Club Deportivo Guadalajara, Arsenal Sarandi, SG Blaubach-Diedelkopf, Friguigbe Conakry, Hednesford Town, Jeju United, Admira Wacker Mödling and all points in between..

The CIES Football Observatory academic team is currently working on the fifth edition of the Demographic Study which will be launched next January (an excerpt of the last report may be downloaded here). The 2013 published analysis will include nearly 11,500 players at 478 clubs in 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations. For more information, please contact them at football.observatory@cies.ch

Now instead of this behaviour give me facts....

@Marcus:

To be fair, Barca's best two defenders of the recent age (Abidal and Puyol) were not trained in Cruyff's version of La Masia.

However, I rather think this backs up your point, rather than negates it. It seems as though teaching defense is not a priority, there.

@Marcus

The data is obviously recent, as it says "Players still at club", which means that it's most probably data of the last 10 years.

Now how did Barcelona not produce the best talent in the last 10 years? Out of all the trophies and success that Barcelona have had in the last 8 years, you are only capable of picking out the 0-7 loss to Bayern? Shameful indeed. It seems you are the one who is biased.

Bayern featured only the likes of Schweinsteiger, Kroos, Alaba, Badstuber and Muller from their own academy.
Real Madrid feature Lopez, Casillas, Arbeloa, Jese, Morata, Soldado, Mata, Negredo, Valero, Callejon, Verdu, Garcia, Juanfran, Parejo, Cambiasso, and Carvajal.
Chelsea feature Terry.
United feature Cleverley, Pogba, Evans, Fletcher, Welbeck, Giggs, and Januzaj.
Manchester City feature Richards.
Arsenal feature Szczesny, Wilshere, Gibbs, and Gnabry.
Ajax feature Van Der Vaart, Sneijder, Heitinga, Eriksen, Fischer, Stekelenburg, Van Der Wiel, De Jong, Vermeer, and Siem de Jong.

And Barcelona...... they feature Pique, Valdes, Puyol, Alba, Fabregas, Iniesta, Busquets, Xavi, Messi, Pedro, Arteta, Bartra, Deulofeu, Reina, Thiago, Thiago Motta, and Joan Verdu, who are by far the superios players (in quantity and quality).