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Álex Baena

Spain · the desk

Midfield, Spain

Club football at Club Atlético de Madrid.

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

    24

    sourced with the squad

  • position

    Midfield

    Spain

  • club

    Club Atlético de Madrid

    football-data.org

  • club tier

    1828

    ClubElo strength

  • our board

    #197

    of 1424 rated players

  • folded so far

    1767′

    30 appearances

  • npxG per 90

    0.19

    75th percentile of peers

On the pitch

Goals for Spain, on the record and counted.

  • goals

    1

  • assists

    0

  • caps

    3

  • minutes

    195′

goals and assists from our captured match events · caps and minutes from the appearance record

Sourced

squad
Spain · Midfieldfootball-data.org · 2026-06-29
club
Club Atlético de Madridfootball-data.org · 2026-06-29

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

Our rating · the working

the board

1893 ±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

1870 full roster Elo (23 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 ~1873 ±45 a projection, not a measurement: room left on the midfield 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 Spain's strengththe fair club-over-national anchor, every player's starting point
1881
age curve at 24 (midfields' curve)young-side discount halved, his measured production overrides the average-youngster prior
-3
attacking output in club football, our xG modelhis percentile among minutes-qualified peers, from club seasons
+16
quality rating · club, age + measured output
1893
form: national-team results, 30 appearances1767 minutes, weighted by margin, surprise and his match stats, but shared across the XI
-23
full roster Elo · with results
1870

Rating trend

-325 over 31 updates

Seeded from his team’s rating, then moved by the matches he actually played. A shadow signal, it never touches a live call.

Where the +16 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
0.19 npxG per 90
his rank
75th percentile of qualified peers
scored from
recent club seasons, every shot scored by our own xG model
the arithmetic
46 pts/σ × z(75.2th) = 46 × 0.68 × 0.5 (position weight) = +16

Where the -23 was earned

The earned line, opened up by competition. World Cup finals count 1.5×, qualifiers and cups 1×, friendlies and club football half, so a tournament night moves him most.

World Cup finals2 apps · 127
+7
international friendlies1 app · 68
-3
club football27 apps · 1572
-28

His latest nights

  • 2026-06-27World Cup finals · 66▲ +4
  • 2026-06-21World Cup finals · 61▲ +3
  • 2026-06-04international friendlies · 68 · team result only▼ −3
  • 2026-05-24club football · 61 · team result only▼ −6
  • 2026-05-17club football · 61 · team result only▲ +1

Each night’s move blends his team’s result with his own match stats, saves for keepers, tackles and duels for defenders, creation for midfielders, finishing up front. “Team result only” marks games where the feed carried no player stats.

A forward-only shadow signal, as of 2026-06-27. 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.

At this World Cup

What the tournament has done to his rating since the first whistle on 11 Jun, and the matches behind it. Each night’s move blends his team’s result with his own performance, shrunk for sample size, so a strong game nudges the number rather than spiking it.

▲ +7

2 appearances · 127′ · 2 graded by his own stats

The matches behind it

  • 06-27won by 1 · 66′ · his stats graded▲ +4
  • 06-21won by 4 · 61′ · his stats graded▲ +3

The same movement shown beside his name on the board, opened up. “Team result only” marks nights the feed carried no player stats. A forward-only shadow signal; it never touches 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

    #197 of 1424 rated players on our board.

  • best night

    His best night in our ledger: +4 in one sitting, World Cup finals, 2026-06-27.

  • vs his seed

    The folded nights have cost him 23 points off his seed, kept on the record, like everything.

What he’d cost · our estimate

€13m€51m €26m

Not a figure from any valuation site; we don’t republish those. Our own model: the level he plays at, what we’ve measured of him, his age and his role. A band, not a point: we can’t see contract length or release clauses, the two biggest real drivers, so we say so.

The workingopenclose
reference feea mid-tier-club, peak-age forward of average measured skill
€8m
club tier 1828the level he plays at, the strongest signal of what a club pays
×3.13
ageage 24, in the fee-peak window (24–27)
×1.00
midfielder fee factorstrikers set the market's top; midfield runs close; defence and goal at the record books' discounts
×0.90
individual skillmeasured 75th percentile of peers
×1.24
our estimate
€26m

fee-model v3 priors (panel-anchored, 2026-06), calibrated against our reported fees. The band is roughly two-in-three likely; contract length and release clauses are data we don’t hold. Context only, it never touches a call.

The fee record · sourced

  • 2025-07-02Villarreal Atletico Madridundisclosed
  • 2022-07-01Girona Villarrealundisclosed
  • 2021-08-20Villarreal Gironaloan

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

In our coverage · Spain’s record

  • at Uruguay0–1Called it
  • v Saudi Arabia5–0Called it
  • v Cape Verde0–0Missed it

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

Squad · sourced