December 23 – Manchester United’s centre back Harry Maguire tops a ranking of players who have played the most number of minutes in 2020. Barcelona’s old timer Lionel Messi comes third.
“Up until December 17th, the English international was fielded during 4’745 minutes (53 matches),” says the research report by the CIES Football Observatory.
“For outfield players, Maguire ranks ahead of Manchester City’s Ruben Dias and the Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi. Other well-known footballers are high in the rankings such as Bruno Fernandes, Romelu Lukaku and Raphaël Varane. If we consider the number of matches played, the Danish full international Christian Eriksen tops the table with 54 games. However, in terms of minutes, the Inter player is not even in the first 1,000 ranks. On average, he played just over a half time per match.”
Golakeepers usually head the most matches and minutes played rankings, but Maguire’s minutes even beat top ranked shot stopper Marcelo Lomba from SC Internacional – 4’740 minutes in 52 official matches.
“The Brazilians are over-represented in the top positions of the rankings. Four goalkeepers playing for European clubs are in the top 10: Lukas Hradecky (Bayer Leverkusen and Finnish national team), Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan AC and Italy), Jan Oblak (Atlético Madrid and Slovenia), as well as Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich and Germany),” saud the report.
See the full stats at https://football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/b5wp/2020/wp318/en/
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