Click to download the image above as a full-sized PDF file

Late one evening, a couple of years ago, the phone started ringing in the Fink Tank labs. It rang and rang because everyone was concentrating and no one wanted to stop the experiments. But eventually someone turned off their Bunsen burner, sauntered over and picked up the receiver. And who should it be on the other end of the line but Castrol, the oil company.

It wasn’t Sir Brian or Lady Castrol, I have to admit, but one of their assistants. Fortunately, though, this assistant was a discerning individual. For he was a big fan of the Fink Tank.

He had a proposition. Castrol had become the sponsor of Euro 2008 and in this capacity was in possession of large amounts of football data. We at Fink Tank Towers, on the other hand, are in the business of making sense of football data and are always eager to get our hands on the stuff. Castrol was interested in performance, we are interested in performance. How about, Sir Brian’s assistant suggested, Castrol and the Fink Tank getting together and seeing what we could do?

So we did. And what has emerged is an exciting project; in fact, a series of exciting projects. It began by ranking players at Euro 2008. The relationship persisted through the Confederations Cup and next there will be a Castrol Index for the World Cup with Fifa backing.

But one of the most exciting joint projects is the one I am revealing today — a European player ranking based on club performances in the Champions League and the five top European leagues (of England, France, Spain, Italy and Germany).

Here is how Dr Henry Stott, Dr Mark Latham and Dr Ian Graham have designed the new Castrol Rankings (castrolfootball.com). First, the pitch is divided into zones and, using the Fink Tank database, the team established the percentage chance of scoring a goal in that part of the field. Then, when a player passes from one zone to another successfully, he has assigned to his score the increase in the percentage chance of scoring a goal that results from their move.

A successful tackle would gain the defender the relevant percentage chance and lose it from the attacker. Even the goal is divided into zones, allowing the Castrol Rankings to distinguish between goalkeeping genius and stupid attacking errors.

Once the scores per minute on the field are established (although if a player is on the field for less than 2,000 minutes their score is divided by 2,000, to ensure that the rankings are not dominated by those who rarely play), they have to be weighted for the difficulty of matches in different leagues. This the Fink Tank Predictor allows us to do. Finally, the scores are normalised, so that they are out of ten.

The Castrol Rankings represent the score across 12 months, thus this month November 2008 will drop out to be replaced by performance in November 2009.

So what do we find from our first go at the data? Thierry Henry, often near the top of previous Fink Tank rankings, has not lost his lustre. He is the best in Europe. Then there is Lionel Messi, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo. Half the top 20 are Spanish or are playing in Spain. And Fernando Torres is top of the Barclays Premier League players.

Other surprises? Claudio Pizarro was, pretty much, a flop at Chelsea, yet he appears to be doing better than any of their players now he is at Werder Bremen.

He will not be satisfied with tenth, though. As Cristiano Ronaldo put it: “Every players want to top the Castrol Rankings. I am aiming the spot No 1.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.