Citing data from the International Football Institute (CIES), the Spanish daily Marca found that David Luiz (Flamengo), the original bombhead, played a total of 6,258 minutes (about 70 games) for Chelsea and Brazil’s national teams in the 2012-2013 season.
It is the highest number of appearances in a single season for all players playing in the top eight European leagues in the past 25 years, when CIES collected data.
After moving from Benfica to Chelsea in 2011, Lewis scored seven goals in 57 matches including 30 Premier League matches and 13 European club competitions during the 2012-2013 season, his third season with Chelsea. From 2012 to 2015, he was also the most active member of Brazil’s national team.
Lewis, who surpassed Frank Lampard in the 2006-2007 season and Roberto Carlos in the 1999-2000 season, has maintained the top spot in the “harsh category” for 11 years.
Lampard and Carlos played 6241 and 6130 minutes, respectively.
Cristiano Ronaldo (Alnasr) ranked fifth in this category by playing 6,116 minutes in the 2011-2012 season, while Lionel Messi (Inter Miami) ranked eighth by playing 6,031 minutes in the same season.
The current Manchester United ace is Bruno Fernandes in sixth place with 6072 minutes in the 2022-2023 season. He is the only active star in the top 10 since Lewis set the record.
Among the top 30 players, there were no names of Korean players including Son Heung-min (Tottenham). Son played in 58 matches in a year last year, and was at the center of controversy over excessive play.
“CIES” concluded that there is no evidence to prove the controversy over the abuse of elite players based on the fact that the average playing time per season (1,603 minutes) of 18,932 players worldwide in the 2013-2014 season and the average playing time (1,587 minutes) in the 2023-2024 season, 10 years later, have decreased.
K-League players were also included in the survey.메이저놀이터
In fact, the average playing time per season for players in the 2020-2021 season was 1,600 minutes, followed by 1597, 1554, and 1587 minutes over the past three seasons.
The CIES also surveyed players’ playing time from 2012 to 2024, and found that only 0.31 percent of the respondents played 60 or more games in a single season, while 21.5 percent played less than 10 games. Only 0.29 percent of the players played more than 5,000 minutes, while 35.8 percent played less than 1,000 minutes. The CIES concluded that except for a very few players, most of them did not play too much time.