October 26 – He didn’t appear on the podium of either the FIFA Best or UEFA’s annual awards but data for the season so far makes Neymar the Most Valuable Player in Europe’s Big 5 leagues.
The CIES Football Observatory has analysed player data in six different areas of performance defined as rigour, recovery, distribution, take-on, chance creation and shooting. Players are split into those who have players for 450 minutes or more this season and those who have played less.
Neymar tops the stats in two different tables: take on (dribbles) and chance creation (assists), as well as overall gathering the most ranking points to make him Europe’s MVP.
Looking at MVPs by league the stats show Cristiano Ronaldo already making his mark, topping the table for Serie A. Lionel Messi leads LaLiga, Sergio Aguero heads the Premier League and Robert Lewandowski the Bundesliga.
Luca Modric, FIFA’s Best and generally feted worldwide for his Russia 2018 performances after a dominating season for Real Madrid, doesn’t head any of the data categories.
“At the head of the tables for footballers who played for less than 450 domestic league minutes during current season are Nicolás Otamendi (rigour), Milan Badelj (recovery), Marco Verratti (distribution), Douglas Costa (take on), Kevin de Bruyne (chance creation and MVP), as well as Konstantinos Mitroglou (shooting)” says CIES.
See the full data at http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/b5wp/2018/237/en/
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