May 18 – Lionel Messi was the best player in European club football this season and Manchester City’s David Silva was the second best. Sergio Aguero was better than Mohamed Salah and they were both better than Harry Kane.
A ranking of the top 100 players in Europe put six Manchester City players in the top. There are 30 players from the Premier League made the top 100
The data, compiled by the CIES Football Observatory, ranks players in Europe’s Big 5 leagues who have played at least 1,800 minutes over the season (1,440 for Germany) according to their performance level.
“RobertLewandowski tops the table for German Bundesliga players (10th overall), while Edinson Cavani heads the French Ligue 1 rankings (21th overall). Per position, the best-ranked footballers are Marc-Andre ter Stegen for goalkeepers, Nicolas Otamendi for defenders, David Silva for midfielders and Lionel Messi for forwards,” finds the report.
Bayern Munich is the most represented club (11 players) while 26 teams have at least one squad member in the top 100 list.
Age is an interesting factor in the rankings. Four of the top five are aged 29 (Aguero) or over. PSG have the oldest player in the ranking with Dani Alves (35, ranked 24th) and the youngest with Kylian Mbappe (19, ranked 37th).
See the ranking methodology used in this CIES research note.
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