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Transfer risk

Translating a striker's output from the Czech league to Ekstraklasa

Between leagues of similar strength the adjustment is smaller than intuition suggests. Transfer risk is driven more by sample size, playing style and team strength.

2 October 2026. Data: 2025/26 season, 26 leagues, outfield players with 1,000+ minutes.

In independent team-strength rankings the Czech league is only 1.2 points weaker than Ekstraklasa (79.0 vs 80.2 on a 0–100 scale). The Polish second tier, by comparison, is 11.6 points weaker. That gap fully explains why the “same” percentile means something very different in each league.

Same percentile, different leagues

We calibrate our cross-league conversion on data from 26 leagues: each point of league-strength difference shifts a player by about 0.19 standard deviations within the distribution of his position (range 0.17–0.22). A 90th-percentile striker in Czechia projects to roughly the 85th percentile in Ekstraklasa. A 90th-percentile striker from the Polish second tier projects to only about the 18th, which is squad-player level.

02550751000255075100Percentile in source leagueEstimated Ekstraklasa percentile
Eredivisie (-0.6)Chance Liga (-1.2)2. Bundesliga (-2.9)1 liga (-11.6)
Estimated Ekstraklasa percentile by percentile in the source league. Grey dashed line: no difference in level. Estimate; model calibrated on 26 leagues, 2025/26 season.

Example: the Czech league's best strikers

The six highest-rated strikers in the Czech league with at least 1,000 minutes in 2025/26. The open dot is their percentile in their own league (a measurement), the red dot is the Ekstraklasa estimate, and the band is the uncertainty range, which widens as minutes fall.

0255075100Striker, 31, 2,063 minStriker, 23, 1,354 minStriker, 34, 1,273 minStriker, 26, 2,049 minStriker, 27, 1,640 minStriker, 28, 2,681 min
Percentile in the Czech league (open dot) and estimated Ekstraklasa percentile with range (red). Names withheld.

The move costs each of them only a few percentiles. What differs far more is the width of the range: the player with 1,273 minutes has a range of 65–89, the leader with 2,063 minutes 85–96.

Profile of the leader

The league's top-rated striker (31, 2,063 minutes) is elite in chance volume and quality (xG/90 better than 96% of the league's strikers) and in aerial success (better than 99%), but only average in shot accuracy (42nd percentile) and attacking duels (42nd percentile).

Goals/90xG/90Shots/90Shots on target %Box touches/90Aerial duels/90Aerials won %Off. duels won %xA/90Shot assists/9050
Striker, 31, Czech leagueDashed ring: 50th percentile, a typical starting striker
Percentiles of 10 key metrics against strikers in the Czech league (1,000+ minutes), 2025/26.

What the model does not see

The conversion applies to overall level, not to individual per-90 numbers. Playing for a dominant side inflates attacking output, so we adjust for team strength, but part of the effect remains. The model also ignores adaptation, language and role in the new team. That is why we always report a range and state what still has to be checked on video and in person.

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