Lyle Foster

Sourced facts, dated and on the record. Squad membership, and his club when a source names one. Nothing invented; we don’t make players up.

At a glance

age
25
sourced with the squad
position
Offence
South Africa
our board
#880
of 1424 rated players
folded so far
1332′
27 appearances
npxG per 90
0.21
78th percentile of peers

Sourced

squad: South Africa · Offencefootball-data.org · 2026-06-29

Sourced context, nothing more. It never touches a call.

Our rating · the working

the board →

1693 ±45

his quality rating: club, age and measured output. The board orders by this plus his World Cup form, less a discount for how much we can measure him.

How the number is builtopenclose

1657 full roster Elo (−35 from national-team results)

the ± is how settled the number is, more minutes, tighter band

Tier 2, lineups + results, how rich the evidence is, not just how much

potential ~1663 ±46 a projection, not a measurement: room left on the offence age curve

Where he starts (his team’s strength, we refuse to invent what we haven’t measured) plus two fixed nudges make the quality rating above; the last line is what national-team results have added since, taking it to his full roster Elo.

starts at South Africa's strengththe fair club-over-national anchor, every player's starting point: 1664
age curve at 25 (offences' curve)young-side discount halved, his measured production overrides the average-youngster prior: -7
attacking output in club football, our xG modelhis percentile among minutes-qualified peers, from club seasons: +35
quality rating · club, age + measured output: 1693
form: national-team results, 27 appearances1332 minutes, weighted by margin, surprise and his match stats, but shared across the XI: -35
full roster Elo · with results: 1657

Where the +35 skill term comes from

Not a reputation, a measurement. We score every shot in the data ourselves and rank him among minutes-qualified peers; a fixed arithmetic turns that rank into points.

measured: 0.21 npxG per 90
his rank: 78th percentile of qualified peers
scored from: recent club seasons, every shot scored by our own xG model
the arithmetic: 46 pts/σ × z(77.8th) = 46 × 0.76 = +35

A forward-only shadow signal, as of 2026-06-11. The skill term comes from our own xG models over the open archive; the rest is earned, recorded per appearance, auditable, never back-filled. It never moves a live call.

The notebook

The lines a beat writer keeps, except every one of ours is read off the ledger above, auditable to the night. Nothing invented.

standing
#880 of 1424 rated players on our board.
vs his seed
The folded nights have cost him 35 points off his seed, kept on the record, like everything.

What he’d cost · our estimate

We don’t price him yet. Our fee model leans on the level he plays at, and no trusted source has given us his club’s strength. We’d rather show nothing than a number we don’t trust.

The fee record · sourced

The market’s last public word: €11m (2023-01). The gap is evidence, many of them, together, recalibrate our model; no single one rewrites him.

2023-01-25KVC Westerlo → Burnley€11m
2021-07-07Guimaraes → KVC Westerloloan
2020-08-13Monaco → Guimaraes€1.2m
2019-08-30Monaco → Cercle Bruggeloan

Reported moves, dated and attributed (api-football.com), news facts, not a valuation site’s estimates. It never touches a call.

In our coverage · South Africa’s record

v Canada0–1Called it
v South Korea1–0Missed it
at Czech Republic1–1Missed it
at Mexico2–0Called it

The newsroom’s calls on South Africa. Team-level, never dressed up as a player stat.