---
tags:
- sports
- football
---
# FBref Football Player Performance Dataset (2024-2025 Season)

## Dataset Description
This dataset contains comprehensive performance statistics for 2273 professional football players during the 2024-2025 season. Sourced from FBref, it includes both traditional metrics (goals, assists) and advanced analytics (xG, xAG, progressive actions) across top European leagues.

- **Curated by:** FBref
- **License:** Publicly available football statistics (check FBref terms for redistribution)
- **Update Frequency:** Seasonal
- **Dataset Size:** 2273 players × 33 features

### Key Features
- **Player metadata:** Name, nationality, position, age
- **Match participation:** Matches played, starts, minutes
- **Goal contributions:** Goals, assists, non-penalty goals
- **Expected metrics:** xG, xAG, npxG, npxG+xAG
- **Progressive actions:** Carries, passes, receives
- **Disciplinary records:** Yellow/red cards
- **Per-90-minute metrics:** 16 efficiency statistics

### Supported Tasks
1. **Player performance analysis**
2. **Transfer market valuation**
3. **Fantasy football optimization**
4. **Positional comparison** (Attackers vs. Midfielders vs. Defenders)
5. **Age-performance correlation studies**

## Dataset Structure

### Data Fields
| Field Name | Description | Type | Example |
|------------|-------------|------|---------|
| Player | Full player name | string | Mohamed Salah |
| Nation | Nationality | string | EGY |
| Position | Primary position(s) | string | AT (Attacker) |
| Age | Player age | int | 32 |
| Matches Played | Total appearances | int | 38 |
| Goals | Total goals scored | float | 29 |
| xG | Expected goals | float | 25.2 |
| Progressive Carries | Ball advancement via dribbling | int | 154 |
| Goals Per 90 | Goals per 90 minutes | float | 0.77 |
| ... (33 fields total) | | | |

### Data Splits
- Single comprehensive file (`PlayersFBREF.csv`)
- No predefined train/validation/test splits (recommended for exploratory analysis)

## Dataset Creation

### Curation Rationale
This dataset was compiled to:
- Provide standardized player performance metrics
- Enable quantitative comparison across leagues
- Support data-driven football analysis
- Facilitate academic research in sports analytics

### Source Data
- **Source:** FBref (https://fbref.com)
- **Coverage:** Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1
- **Time Period:** 2024-2025 season
- **Player Selection:** All players with significant minutes (≥ 200 mins)

### Preprocessing
1. International symbol standardization (e.g., "AT" for attacker)
2. Minutes formatting (e.g., "3,371" → 3371)
3. Per-90 metrics calculated from raw totals
4. Duplicate entries consolidated (e.g., Salah appears once)

### Known Limitations
- Contains European league bias
- Goalkeeper statistics are limited
- Position classifications may oversimplify hybrid roles
- Set-piece contributions not isolated

## Usage Considerations

### Ethical Considerations
- Player data is publicly available professional information
- Performance metrics shouldn't be used for personal criticism
- Age data requires careful interpretation in analysis

### Potential Biases
- League coverage favors top 5 European competitions
- Playing time bias (bench players underrepresented)
- Metric weighting favors offensive contributions

### Recommended Use Cases
- Academic sports research
- Fantasy football optimization
- Player scouting and talent identification
- Football analytics education

## Additional Information

### Citation Information
```bibtex
@dataset{fbref_player_performance_2025,
  author = {FBref},
  year = {2025},
  title = {European Football Player Statistics 2024-2025},
  howpublished = {https://fbref.com}
}