Which clubs play U21 stars the most: Man Utd and Barcelona in top ten

Ligue 1 club top 

It’s been a long summer for supporters across Europe as they wait to see their beloved clubs return to competitive action. A handful of European clubs participated in the Club World Cup but for the majority of fans, the wait is almost over. Three of the top five leagues return this weekend with LaLiga, Ligue 1 and the English Premier League getting underway. The Bundesliga and Serie A return next weekend and excitement is building for a new campaign across the five biggest leagues in the world.

Clubs have spent billions of pounds recruiting new signings in the transfer market with the aim of many to unearth future stars. Major clubs are far more willing to invest in younger talents as they can develop into world-class players and crucially, they maintain market value. Several elite talents made their breakthrough last season like Ethan Nwaneri, Marc Casadó and Andrey Santos. Using Transfermarkt’s exclusive data, we’ve analysed which clubs handed the most minutes to U21 talents last season.

Which clubs handed the most minutes to U21 stars last season?

Ligue 1 clubs generally hand youngsters more opportunities than any other top five league and Strasbourg led the way across the 2024/25 season. Strasbourg, part of the BlueCo consortium that own Chelsea, are renowned for their approach of developing younger talents and Liam Rosenior used 24 different U21 starlets last season, accumulating 21,789 minutes in total. Barcelona occupy second place with the Spanish giants using 15 U21 players for a combined 21,237 minutes. Lamine Yamal (4,553’) and Pau Cubarsí (4,321’) led the way for the Catalan club with Hansi Flick entrusting youngsters to perform and they delivered with the LaLiga title.

As the graphic above illustrates, it’s noticeable that several major European clubs feature in the top ten to highlight their approach of developing youngsters. PSG enjoyed a famous campaign, winning the Champions League for the first time and they rank third (16,156’) with two Bundesliga clubs, RB Leipzig and Eintracht Frankurt, complete the top five. Leipzig and Frankfurt’s business models have revolved around developing youngster before selling on for substantial profits - demonstrated by Benjamin Sesko and Hugo Etitike’s big-money moves to England this summer. Manchester United were the top English clubs (12,425’) with Real Madrid also making it into the top ten but no Serie A clubs feature.