[Eredivisie] Average Height Ranking — All 18 Clubs on Opening Weekend 2026-27

The 2026-27 Eredivisie season kicked off on 8 August 2026. For this piece we took the eleven players each club sent out for the opening round and worked out their average height. We deliberately left the substitutes out: the eleven names on the teamsheet at kick-off are the clearest statement a manager makes about the physical profile he wants to start a season with.

The overall picture first. Across the 18 clubs and 198 starters, the Eredivisie average is 181.96cm. Fortuna Sittard lead on 186.27cm, NEC Nijmegen are bottom on 177.73cm, a spread of 8.55cm. The middle of the table is bunched tight — PEC Zwolle, FC Groningen, Ajax and Willem II are level to the centimetre on 181.09cm — while the two ends stretch away from it.

Fortuna Sittard, Top of the Table — A 196cm and a 198cm in Front of a Back Five

Fortuna Sittard run away with this on 186.27cm. Their margin over second-placed Go Ahead Eagles is 1.82cm — about the same as the gap covering second to seventh (1.81cm). Their opening fixture was away at champions PSV, and they set up in a 5-3-2 with five across the back, the 196cm Yassin Oukili in front of them and the 198cm Lequincio Zeefuik up top.

What makes the number is not a few outliers but the absence of anything short. Their smallest starter is 175cm (Jasper Dahlhaus); nobody stands 174cm or below. Only four clubs managed that — Fortuna, FC Twente, Telstar and PEC Zwolle. Their midfield three averaged 187.33cm, the tallest midfield of any club in the division. They did not just stack the defence; they carried the height into the line in front of it.

Put the top two side by side and they are built differently. Fortuna have seven players in the 180s — a thick middle — while Go Ahead are weighted higher, with seven at 185cm or above. Alongside goalkeeper Kjetil Haug (191cm) and striker Stefan Ingi Sigurdarson (194cm), the Eagles fielded Søren Tengstedt (188cm), Julius Dirksen (185cm), Evert Linthorst (185cm) and Victor Edvardsen (185cm), spreading size from front to back.

The bottom two are nothing alike either. SC Cambuur span 165cm to 193cm — a 28cm range, the widest in the division. They have the 193cm goalkeeper Thijs Jansen and a front two of Skye Vink and Iwan Henstra (both 188cm), but the six players in between all stand 178cm or under. Their back four averaged 175.75cm, the only defence in the division in the 175s, with the 165cm Lucas Jetten at left-back. NEC Nijmegen are the opposite: a 18cm range, nobody in the 190s and four players in the 170-174cm band — a flat, evenly built side (the narrowest range of all belongs to PEC Zwolle at 16cm).

By Position — The Midfield Is Not Left Behind

Split the 197 starters whose height is known by position and the range runs 10.82cm, from goalkeepers at 190.00cm down to midfielders at 179.18cm. Defenders sit at 182.51cm and forwards at 181.64cm — under a centimetre apart.

The line worth pausing on is the midfield. Only 3.32cm separates midfielders from defenders here, and four of the 29 starters standing 190cm or taller are registered midfielders: Fortuna's Yassin Oukili (196cm), PSV's Sven Mijnans (191cm), AZ's Lewis Schouten (191cm) and Feyenoord's Thijs Kraaijeveld (190cm). Height in the centre of the pitch is not treated as a contradiction in this division. Midfielders do still supply the most small players — four of the seven starters under 170cm — so the line is stretched at both ends rather than simply short.

The goalkeepers, meanwhile, are large across the board. The 18 of them average exactly 190.00cm and half stand 190cm or taller. The tallest is FC Twente's Lars Unnerstall (198cm); the shortest, NEC's Gonzalo Crettaz, is still 183cm, so no club in the division started a goalkeeper who would count as small anywhere else on the pitch.

Three Starters at 198cm, and Shunsuke Mito Among the Shortest

Among the 198 starters, three stood 198cm. FC Twente had two of them in the same eleven — goalkeeper Lars Unnerstall and striker Wout Weghorst — the only club to supply two of the joint-tallest. The third is Fortuna's Lequincio Zeefuik. Two of the three are forwards, which is worth noting in itself: the very tallest players here were not parked in goal or at centre-back but sent out to lead the line.

Immediately below them, seven more players stand 193cm: goalkeepers Tjark Ernst (Feyenoord), Mattijs Branderhorst (Fortuna), Thomas Didillon (Willem II) and Thijs Jansen (Cambuur), plus outfielders Mike Eerdhuijzen (DF, Utrecht), David Min (FW, Utrecht) and Yannick Eduardo (FW, ADO Den Haag). Utrecht started two of them in the same eleven.

At the other end, the shortest starters were three players at 165cm, two of them from Sparta Rotterdam: Japan international forward Shunsuke Mito and midfielder Ayoni Santos. Sparta are one of three clubs — with Ajax and NEC — who started nobody at 190cm or above, their tallest being goalkeeper Filip Bednarek and forward Nökkvi Thórisson at 188cm. The third 165cm starter is Cambuur defender Lucas Jetten, the only player that small anywhere in a back line.

Only seven starters in the entire division stand below 170cm — four midfielders, two defenders and one forward, and no goalkeepers — which is 3.5% of the sample. A further eleven are exactly 170cm. One other Japanese player started the round: Feyenoord's Ayase Ueda, at 183cm.

Ajax Sit 13th — The Title Favourites Who Chose Not to Be Tall

The order at the top is the intriguing part. Ajax, among the favourites for the title, are 13th on 181.09cm — level to the centimetre with PEC Zwolle, FC Groningen and Willem II in a four-way tie. Their tallest starters are three players at 188cm (goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen, defender Aaron Bouwman and striker Kasper Dolberg); nobody reaches 190cm. The midfield of Oscar Gloukh (170cm), Youri Regeer (178cm), Davy Klaassen (178cm) and Abdellah Ouazane (183cm) is built on technique and mobility rather than size.

Champions PSV went the other way, fourth on 184.09cm. Around the 196cm goalkeeper Matej Kovar they started Sven Mijnans (191cm) and Guus Til (188cm) and packed the rest of the side with players around the 185cm mark. That two clubs competing for the same title are assembled in opposite ways is one of the more interesting things the opening round revealed.

A word on systems. The 4-2-3-1 was the most common shape, used by ten clubs, whose starters averaged 182.38cm; the four clubs in a 4-3-3 averaged 180.63cm. The two sides with three at the back (NEC's 3-4-3 and Fortuna's 5-3-2) averaged 182.00cm against 181.95cm for the sixteen playing a four — a difference of 0.05cm. Those two, though, finished 1st and 18th on this table, which says plainly enough that who you pick matters far more than the shape you pick.

Height, of course, is only one component of a result. Set-piece goals scored and conceded, dealing with crosses, and conversely the mobility to play out from the back — whether this ranking actually means anything will be settled over 34 rounds. Tap any club name to load its opening-round formation and rearrange the players yourself.

Note: the sample is the starting eleven named by each club for round one of the 2026-27 season, played 8-9 August 2026 (Japan time) — 198 players in total. Substitutes are excluded. Heights are simple averages rounded to two decimal places. No published height could be found for Excelsior forward David Garden, so that club's average, and the positional table, are calculated from the remaining 197 players. Clubs on identical figures are listed in no particular order. Compiled by Fomelabo.