February 26 – French-trained players dominate a ranking of players who dribble the most in the Big-5 Leagues but Lionel Messi is still the master with the ball at his feet and tops the ranking over the past year.
The CIES Football Observatory data ranks players according to the number of domestic league minutes played per successful dribble over the last 365 days. Messi comes top with a dribble every19.2 minutes. He is ahead of Nice’s Allan Saint-Maximin (19.8) and Chelsea’s Eden Hazard (21).
Five players who grew up in France are in the top 8 positions: Saint-Maximin, Naïm Sliti, Ousmane Dembele, Marcus Thuram and Jeff Reine-Adelaide.
When it comes to ‘success rate’ Hazard is the most efficient (73%) amongst players who have attempted more than 100 dribbles in the period. Three other players had a success rate of more than 70%: Naïm Sliti, Marcus Thuram and Éver Banega.
Jordan Sancho is the is the best-ranked player of those currently playing in the Bundesliga ahead of Ihlas Bebou and teammate Achraf Hakimi. Paul Dybala heads the rankings for Serie A footballers ahead of Rodrigo de Paul and Federico Chiesa.
See the full table and links to individual player stats at http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/b5wp/2018/252/en/
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