Celtic pair Liel Abada and Matt O’Riley have been named in a report about the finest young talent currently playing outside Europe’s top five leagues.
The Hoops duo are included in the latest weekly post from CIES Football Observatory who we have covered on the site in the recent past.
CIES – a research group within the International Centre for Sports Studies – specialise in the statistical analysis of football.
In a post published on Wednesday, they have named the top 100 footballers under the age of 23 who aren’t playing in the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A or Ligue 1.
Benfica forward Gonçalo Ramos tops the chart with an estimated value of €70 million. His team-mate António Silva is in second place.
Abada is in joint-35th in the list with CIES’ ‘statistical model’ valuing him at €17 million.
O’Riley is further down the list at joint 55th with a value of €13 million.
Of course, this list only tells a fraction of the Celtic story with regards to sellable talents.
The likes of Cameron Carter-Vickers, Jota, Alistair Johnston and Reo Hatate are all likely to net the club millions at some stage, but all are either 24 or 25 so miss out on the list.
The other really talented under-23 Hyeongyu Oh will surely be in similar lists compiled in the future.
Celtic have already cashed in on Giorgos Giakoumakis and Josip Juranovic this season, and replaced them efficiently with Oh and Johnston.
You’d expect some more big names to depart over the next year or so, with Abada perhaps a leading contender to move on this summer.
If we reinvest the money as well as we have so far, that’s nothing to worry about.
In other news, Callum McGregor gave a great response earlier when asked about his post-Celtic playing days
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