Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper

Scrape global football player data from Transfermarkt — full identities, market value history, transfers, agency, national team caps, injuries, and suspensions for 1M+ profiles. Powered by the public Transfermarkt JSON API for clean, structured records and the website itself for discovery.

---

Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper Features

• Returns 40+ fields per player profile, all flattened into Apify-friendly JSON.
• Discovers players four different ways — direct player IDs, club rosters, competition codes, or free-text search. Pick one.
• Pulls full market value history. That's every quarterly valuation Transfermarkt has ever published for a player, including the all-time peak.
• Captures career arcs from youth clubs through senior transfers, with fees and dates where Transfermarkt has them.
• Splits absences into injuries and suspensions. Yellow cards, red cards, sports-court verdicts — they all land in the right bucket.
• Uses the public Transfermarkt JSON API for enrichment, so the per-player payload is rich and consistent rather than scraped from inconsistent HTML.
• Default datacenter proxies handle the CloudFront WAF on listing pages. Switch to residential if you see HTTP 403s.

---

Who Uses Transfermarkt Player Data?

• Sports betting and trading firms — Build market value baselines, surface mispricings around transfers and injuries.
• Fantasy football platforms — Power player cards with current clubs, market values, and form context.
• Football agents and scouts — Track career arcs, contract expiries, and agency relationships at scale.
• Sports journalists and analysts — Pull standardised career histories without copy-pasting from individual profile pages.
• Academic researchers — Long-tail labour-economics studies of football transfers, salary trajectories, and migration patterns.
• Club analytics departments — Benchmark squad valuations, monitor competing rosters, scout free agents.

---

How Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper Works

1. Pick a discovery source. Pass player IDs directly, hand it club IDs (e.g. 31 for Liverpool, 69261 for Inter Miami), feed it competition codes (GB1 for Premier League, ES1 for La Liga, MLS1 for MLS), or just type a search query. The scraper picks the highest-priority source you've provided.
2. Discovery resolves to player IDs. Club rosters and competition pages get parsed for /spieler/<id> links. Search queries hit the Transfermarkt schnellsuche endpoint. Direct IDs skip this stage entirely.
3. Each player gets enriched in parallel — five Transfermarkt API endpoints fan out per player to pull identity, market value history, transfers, national team caps, and absences.
4. Records flatten into the dataset. All array fields are primitive strings (Apify schema requirement), club IDs resolve to names via a cached lookup, nationality IDs resolve to country names.

---

Input

{
    "playerIds": ["28003", "8198"],
    "maxItems": 10,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
searchQuery	string	""	Free-text search on transfermarkt.com (e.g. "messi", "haaland", "bellingham"). Returns top matches up to maxItems.
playerIds	array	["28003", "8198"]	Transfermarkt player IDs (the numeric tail of /spieler/<id> URLs). Highest priority — when set, HTML discovery is skipped.
clubIds	array	[]	Transfermarkt club IDs (e.g. "69261" for Inter Miami, "31" for Liverpool). Pulls every player from each club's current roster.
competitionCodes	array	[]	Transfermarkt competition codes — GB1 (Premier League), ES1 (La Liga), IT1 (Serie A), L1 (Bundesliga), FR1 (Ligue 1), MLS1 (MLS), and so on. Pulls every club, then every player.
maxItems	integer	10	Maximum number of player profiles to scrape. Keep low for test runs.
proxyConfiguration	object	datacenter	Apify datacenter proxies are the default. Switch to RESIDENTIAL only if you see HTTP 403 errors on the HTML pages.

Discovery priority

If you set multiple sources, the scraper picks one in this order:

1. playerIds
2. clubIds
3. competitionCodes
4. searchQuery

So if you pass both playerIds and clubIds, the IDs win.

Discovery examples

Scrape an entire Premier League team:

{
    "clubIds": ["31"],
    "maxItems": 30
}

Scrape the top of the Bundesliga and get the first 100 players the page yields:

{
    "competitionCodes": ["L1"],
    "maxItems": 100
}

Scrape direct player IDs (fastest, no HTML traffic):

{
    "playerIds": ["28003", "8198", "418560", "342229"],
    "maxItems": 4
}

---

Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper Output Fields

{
    "player_id": "28003",
    "profile_url": "https://www.transfermarkt.com/lionel-messi/profil/spieler/28003",
    "full_name": "Lionel Andrés Messi Cuccitini",
    "display_name": "Lionel Messi",
    "date_of_birth": "1987-06-24",
    "age": 38,
    "place_of_birth": "Rosario",
    "country_of_birth": "Argentina",
    "nationality": ["Argentina", "Spain"],
    "gender": "male",
    "position": "Right Winger",
    "position_category": "Striker",
    "foot": "left",
    "height_cm": 170,
    "current_club": "Inter Miami CF",
    "current_club_id": "69261",
    "current_competition": "Major League Soccer",
    "current_competition_code": "MLS1",
    "shirt_number": 10,
    "is_captain": true,
    "contract_until": "2028-12-31",
    "last_contract_renewal": "2025-10-23",
    "market_value_eur": 15000000,
    "market_value_currency": "EUR",
    "market_value_determined": "2025-12-11",
    "previous_market_value_eur": 18000000,
    "highest_market_value_eur": 180000000,
    "highest_market_value_determined": "2018-05-30",
    "market_value_history": [
        "2017 | FC Barcelona | EUR 180.00M",
        "2023 | Inter Miami CF | EUR 30.00M",
        "2024 | Inter Miami CF | EUR 15.00M"
    ],
    "agent": "Relatives",
    "agency": "",
    "agency_id": "1207",
    "youth_clubs": ["Grandoli FC (1992-1995)", "Newell's Old Boys (1995-2000)"],
    "career_history": [
        "FC Barcelona -> Paris Saint-Germain | 2021-08-10 | Free Transfer | 21/22",
        "Paris Saint-Germain -> Inter Miami CF | 2023-07-15 | Free Transfer | 23/24"
    ],
    "total_transfer_fees_eur": 0,
    "international_team": "Argentina",
    "international_caps": 198,
    "international_goals": 116,
    "national_team_history": [
        "Argentina | 198 apps | 116 goals | CURRENT_NATIONAL_PLAYER",
        "Argentina U20 | 18 apps | 14 goals | FORMER_NATIONAL_PLAYER"
    ],
    "injuries": [],
    "suspensions": [
        "2025-07-25 to 2025-07-28 | Suspension through sports court | 1 game"
    ],
    "photo_url": "https://img.a.transfermarkt.technology/portrait/big/28003-1771694720.jpg",
    "scraped_at": "2026-05-02T15:53:00.000Z"
}

Field	Type	Description
player_id	string	Transfermarkt numeric player ID.
profile_url	string	Canonical player profile URL on transfermarkt.com.
full_name	string	Full legal name (passport name from Transfermarkt).
display_name	string	Common display name.
short_name	string	Initial-and-surname short form.
nickname	string	Artist or nickname. Often empty for non-Brazilian players.
date_of_birth	string	YYYY-MM-DD.
age	number	Current age in years.
place_of_birth	string	Birthplace city.
country_of_birth	string	Birthplace country name.
nationality	array of strings	Nationality country names. Most players have one; dual nationals get both.
gender	string	male or female.
position	string	Primary position (e.g. Right Winger, Centre-Forward, Goalkeeper).
position_category	string	Broad group — Goalkeeper, Defender, Midfielder, Striker.
foot	string	Preferred foot — left, right, or both.
height_cm	number	Height in centimetres.
current_club	string	Current club name. Empty if retired or without contract.
current_club_id	string	Current club's Transfermarkt ID.
current_competition	string	Current league or competition name.
current_competition_code	string	Current competition's Transfermarkt code (GB1, ES1, MLS1, etc.).
shirt_number	number	Current shirt number at club.
is_captain	boolean	Whether the player is the current club captain.
contract_until	string	Current contract expiry date (YYYY-MM-DD).
last_contract_renewal	string	Date of last contract renewal.
market_value_eur	number	Current market value in EUR.
market_value_currency	string	Always EUR.
market_value_determined	string	Date the current market value was last set.
previous_market_value_eur	number	Previous published market value before the most recent update.
highest_market_value_eur	number	All-time peak market value in EUR.
highest_market_value_determined	string	Date the all-time peak was set.
market_value_history	array of strings	`"YYYY
agent	string	Player's individual agent or consultant.
agency	string	Player's agency name (e.g. CAA Stellar, Wasserman).
agency_id	string	Transfermarkt agency ID.
youth_clubs	array of strings	"Club Name (start-end)" entries.
career_history	array of strings	Senior club moves: `"from -> to
total_transfer_fees_eur	number	Sum of disclosed transfer fees across senior career.
international_team	string	Current senior national team name (or empty if uncapped).
international_caps	number	Total senior international appearances.
international_goals	number	Total senior international goals.
national_team_history	array of strings	All national-team levels with apps, goals, and current/former status.
injuries	array of strings	`"YYYY-MM-DD to YYYY-MM-DD
suspensions	array of strings	Same format. Includes red/yellow card suspensions, sports-court rulings, and call-ups.
photo_url	string	Player portrait URL.
scraped_at	string	ISO timestamp the record was scraped.

---

FAQ

How do I scrape Transfermarkt player data?

Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper accepts four discovery modes — direct player IDs, club IDs, competition codes, or a free-text search query. Pass any one of them in the input, set maxItems, and the scraper handles the rest. Player IDs are the numeric tail of any /spieler/<id> URL; club IDs come from /verein/<id> URLs; competition codes are the short codes Transfermarkt uses internally (GB1, ES1, IT1, L1, FR1, MLS1, etc.).

How much does Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper cost to run?

Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper uses Pay-Per-Event pricing — $0.10 per actor start plus $0.001 per player record returned. A 100-player run costs 20 cents. A 10,000-player crawl costs about $10.

What data can I get from Transfermarkt?

Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper returns 40+ fields per player — full identity (name, date of birth, place of birth, nationalities, gender), physical attributes (height, foot, position), current contract (club, competition, shirt number, captaincy, contract dates), market value (current, previous, all-time peak, plus full history), career arc (youth clubs, senior transfers with fees and dates), national team record (caps, goals per team), and an absence log split into injuries and suspensions.

Does Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper need proxies?

Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper defaults to Apify datacenter proxies, which clear Transfermarkt's CloudFront WAF on the listing pages without trouble. The Transfermarkt JSON API itself has no anti-bot layer. If you see HTTP 403 errors during a large search-query or club-roster crawl, switch to residential.

Can I scrape an entire league or just specific clubs?

Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper handles both. Pass a competition code (e.g. GB1 for Premier League) to walk every club in that league and pull their players. Pass specific club IDs to scope to those clubs only. maxItems caps the total players returned regardless of how many clubs are in scope.

How fresh is Transfermarkt market value data?

Transfermarkt updates market values quarterly (with major refreshes in December and June) and logs transfers in real time during the windows. Each record includes a market_value_determined date so you can see exactly when each valuation was set.

---

Need More Features?

Open an issue at the OrbTop actor support inbox and we'll consider it for the next release.

Why Use Transfermarkt Football Player Scraper?

• 40+ fields per player — Identity, contract, market value history, full career arc, national caps, agency, injuries, and suspensions all in one record.
• Four discovery modes — Direct IDs, club rosters, league walks, or free-text search. Use whichever fits your workflow.
• Public JSON API enrichment — The hard data (career history, market values, transfers) comes from Transfermarkt's own structured API, not flaky HTML parsing.
• Pay-Per-Event pricing — $0.001 per player record. Run 100 or 100,000, you pay only for what you get.