May 5 – Lionel Messi has topped another European ranking of players based on their performances this season. He heads PSG’s Neymar Júnior who seems to have finally settled in Paris, and Bayern goalscoring machine Robert Lewandowski.
The ranking from the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post uses an index developed by InStat to assess player performance. This metric takes into account what the CIES describe as the ‘technical gestures’ achieved by players, as well as their playing time, and the level of the competitions in which matches were played. Only players with more than 1,000 domestic league minutes this season were included.
While the top three positions are filled by relative old stagers, the following positions show technical superiority and dominance of Manchester City this season. Full back João Cancelo lead the table in the English Premier League ahead of teammates Rodri Hernández, Kevin de Bruyne and Riyad Mahrez. At fifth position is Jesse Lingard (West Ham, on loan from Manchester United).
CIES points out that conversely, “players from five different teams are at the top five positions of the Serie A rankings: Lorenzo Insigne (Napoli), Achraf Hakimi (Inter), Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus), Théo Hernández (Milan) and Domenico Berardi (Sassuolo).”
“The youngest players heading the table in their respective league are 21-year-olds Noa Lang (Club Brugge) in Belgium and Fabio Parisi (Empoli) in the Italian Serie B, as well as 22-year-olds Patson Daka (RB Salzburg) in Austria, Olimpiu Moruţan (FCSB) in Romania and Denys Popov (Dynamo Kyiv) in Ukraine,” says the CIES.
Click here to see the full rankings by league.
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