Soccer—more commonly referred to as football—is a team sport involving two competing teams with eleven field players each and is considered the most popular sport in the world. The modern-day variant of the sports has its origin in England where the rules were first drawn up around the mid-19th century. Today, soccer is watched and played by billions of people all across the world. 

In terms of revenue and overall level of competition, Europe is the most prominent soccer market in the world. In the 2015/2016 soccer season, professional soccer in Europe had an estimated market size of 24.6 billion U.S. dollars. The main administrative body for soccer in Europe is the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) which organizes the club and national competitions such as the UEFA Champions League for clubs and the European Championship for national teams. The UEFA Champions League alone generated total revenue of over two billion Euros in the 2015/2016 season.

Five of the world’s most prestigious national soccer leagues (the “Big Five”) are located in Europe—the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and Ligue 1 in France. The combined revenue of the “Big Five” leagues in the 2017/2018 season amounted to around 15 billion Euros. Manchester United of the English Premier League (EPL) was the most valuable football brand worldwide in 2017 while the German Bundesliga recorded the highest average per game attendance in 2016/2017. The total value of kit sponsorship of the EPL in 2017/2018 stood at around 282 British Pounds. 


So now, we present you the stats of the year 2017 for the game of football.

It was a great year for Real Madrid as they managed to win 5 major trophies including the La Liga and UEFA Champions League. Chelsea won the English Premier League, Monaco won the League 1, Bayern Munich won the Bundesliga, Juventus won the Serie A.

As per the performances of this year itself, Barcelona holds the number 1 rank ( ranking by https://www.whoscored.com) followed by Manchester City and PSG holding the 3rd position. Barcelona scored a total of 45 goals this year and are the current topper of La Liga table. Manchester City, on the other hand, scored 60 goals holding the 1st position of Premier League table.

As per as individual goal scoring is concerned, Mohamed Salah from Liverpool is the highest scorer of Premier League with 15 goals. Lionel Messi of Barcelona, on the other hand, has 15 goals this running season to be the top La Liga goal scorer. Robert Lewandowski of Bayern Munich is the topper of Bundesliga with 15 goals. Maura Icardi from Internazionale is the highest scorer from Serie A with 17 goals.

As per the awards are concerned, Cristiano Ronaldo has won the Best FIFA Men’s player of the year, Gianluigi Buffon has won the Best FIFA Goalkeeper of the year, whereas Zinedine Zidane, the coach of Real Madrid won the Best FIFA Men’s coach award.

Lieke Martens of Netherlands won the Best FIFA Women’s Player of the year award.

Olivier Giroud of Arsenal won the prestigious FIFA Puskas Award this year.

FIFA has selected it’s World11 in the following order:

Gianluigi Buffon ( Goalkeeper, Juventus), Dani Alves ( Defender, PSG), Leonardo Bonucci (Defender, Milan), Sergio Ramos ( Defender, Real Madrid), Marcelo ( Defender, Real Madrid), Luka Mordic ( Mid- fielder, Real Madrid), Toni Kroos (Mide0 fielder, Real Madrid), Andres Iniesta (Mid-fielder , Barcelona) , Lionel Messi ( Forward, Barcelona), Cristiano Ronaldo (Forward, Real Madrid), Neymar ( Forward, PSG)

As per the national teams are concerned, Portugal has won the FIFA Confederation Cup this year. And here are the following teams who have managed to qualify for upcoming tournament FIFA World Cup 2018 held in Qatar:

Russia, Brazil, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Belgium, South Korea, Saudi Arab, Germany, England, Spain, Nigeria, Costa Rica, Poland, Egypt, Iceland, Serbia, Portugal,France, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Switzerland, Croatia, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, Peru.

The biggest upset for this year was probably Buffon’s Retirement from international Football after Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup.