FOOTBALL: Chievo are Europe's oldest team, Hadjuk Split the youngest - but who are the tallest?

Serie A club Chievo have the oldest bunch of players in Europe.

The Italians’ playing squad has an average age of 30.6 years, 18 months more than the next oldest, Cyprus clubs APOEL and AEK Larnaca, Turkey’s Akhisar Belediyespor and Rayo Vallecano from La Liga.

At the other end of the spectrum, Hadjuk Split from Croatia and Slovakia’s FK Senica are the youngest teams with an average age of 22.1 years.

Dutch duo SC Heerenveen and FC Twente are next on 22.6 with Ukraine’s Metalurg Zaporizhya on 22.7.

When it comes to the tallest team, Bundesliga club Vfl Wolfsburg lead the way with an average height of 187cm per player.

This is a more than a cm than second-placed Czech outfit SK Sigma Olomouc and SV Mattersburg of Austria who stand 185.6cm in their stockinged feet.

A cm further behind are Ukraine’s FC Volyn Lutsk with the Czech Republic’s FC Slovacko fifth on 185.2.

The shortest team in Europe are Bulgarian side PFC Ludogorets Razgrad on 178cm, half a cm smaller than Cypriots Doxa Katokopias and Israel’s Beitar Jerusalem.

OGC Nice of France and European champions Barcelona are next on 178.7cm.

CSKA Moscow is obviously the best place to play because their players stay with the longest – an average of 5.67 years.

This is more than a year more than La Liga side Real Sociedad (4.62 years) with Swedes Atvidabergs third on 4.3 years.

Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk (4.24) and Barcelona (4.2) complete the top five.

FC Chornomorets Odessa of Ukraine have a player retention rate of 1.20 years, the shortest of any club in Europe.

Hapoel Tel Aviv of Israel (1.24), Portuguese club Moreirense (1.26), Serbians FK Vozdovac (1.26) and Croatians NK Istra 1961 (1.28) complete the clubs least likely to pay out loyalty bonuses.

The CIES Football Observatory full data list can be found by clicking here.