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| Jude Bellingham. Getty |
December is a natural point in the European soccer season to look back. It's the approximate midway point of the season, the Champions League group stage is coming to an end and the Bundesliga -- the only sensible league in this regard -- is approaching its annual nearly month-long break. And so it makes sense to use this as an excuse to put together a team-of-the-half-season type of piece. You'll find that below.
That list has only a couple of reaches or surprises, though. You know Jude Bellingham and Rodri will be there. Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappé too. You might wonder whether I chose Bukayo Saka or Mo Salah on the right wing, and there were at least a few genuine mystery positions -- goalkeeper, one of the center-backs, the midfield spot alongside Bellingham -- heading into the exercise. But the list made itself to a certain degree. So I also made a second list -- one full of my favorite players of the first two-fifths of the season.
Call it the Head XI versus the Heart XI, this season's superlatives across Europe's top leagues viewed from two different lenses.
GOALKEEPER
Head pick: Alisson, Liverpool
It just seems like he checks the most boxes at the moment, doesn't it?
He's been healthy until very recently (unlike Real Madrid's Thibaut Courtois), which is a nice start. His save percentage in league play (82%) is eighth in the Big Five leagues, he's given up 3.4 fewer goals than the xG for opponents' shots on target suggest he should have (17th), he's sure on crosses and aside from a couple of dicey moments against Manchester City, he's mostly sure in buildup. And in their first game after he suffered a hamstring injury against City, Liverpool allowed three goals to Fulham, which certainly helped.
Heart pick: Mike Maignan, AC Milan
Trust is hard to gain when it comes to goalkeepers, and then it's pretty easy to lose. Statistically, Maignan hasn't been great this season. He hasn't been quite as sure-handed as usual, his save percentage (66%) is extremely mediocre, and he has given up 2.4 more goals than xG for opponents' shots on target suggest he should have, which ranks 72nd among the 87 Big Five keepers with at least 900 league minutes. But he's Magic Mike! Heroic in last year's Champions League! Capable of long bombs like this!
That's his third straight league season with an assist. He's still magic.
RIGHT BACK
Head pick: Kieran Trippier, Newcastle
Ryan O'Hanlon visited the concept of expected possession value this week in determining each of the Premier League's MVPs to date. Among the MVPs were nine wingers/forwards, seven midfielders/attacking midfielders, two center backs and two fullbacks. Tripper was one of the latter. "A good deal of the value he provides comes from his excellent set-piece delivery, but he still ranks 10th among all players in the league with 2.73 EPV created from open play."
Trippier, 33, has been a constant for an impossibly injury-plagued Newcastle team. If you're not into fancy-sounding advanced stats, I'll just point out that he's one of three players in the Big Five with seven league assists, and the other two are wingers (Wolves' Pedro Neto and RB Leipzig's Xavi Simons).
Trippier is fulfilling the roles of both the best wingers in the game and the best fullbacks. His engine is unbelievable. He keeps getting better.
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| Trippier. Getty |
Heart pick: Jules Koundé, Barcelona
Honestly, I just love that he might genuinely be one of the two or three best right backs in the world, but he evidently dislikes the position and wants to play center-back instead. That's like being born with the greatest finger-picking skills ever, but hating bluegrass music and wanting to just rock.
Kounde reverted to right back last weekend against Atletico Madrid for the first time all season, and he was excellent. Because he might genuinely be one of the two or three best right backs in the world.
CENTER BACKS
Head picks: William Saliba, Arsenal, and Mario Hermoso, Atletico Madrid
Looking back at the center-backs portion of the 2023 ESPN FC 100 list is like looking at an ancient relic, full of names from the distant past who have not had a chance to do much this season. Éder Militão (No. 5 on the list) played 50 league minutes before tearing an ACL, and four others have missed a healthy amount of time as well.
Rúben Dias, No. 1 on the list, hasn't really played like even a top-10 guy this year, and Josko Gvardiol, No. 2 and now Dias' Manchester City teammate, is still finding his way at his new club. Based solely on 2023-24 performance, there's a chance that as many as six or seven of the 10 players on that list wouldn't make it. The list isn't that old!
Saliba would make it, however; he might even be No. 1. He's a wonderfully safe passer and one of the better one-on-one defenders in Europe. That he's this well-rounded at 22 is pretty mind-blowing.
Hermoso, meanwhile, didn't make the summer FC 100 list at all. But while I'm sure you could make an excellent case for top-10ers like Virgil van Dijk or Kim Min-Jae here -- or the banjo-playing Jules Kounde -- I'm not sure any of them have been as sturdy and effective as Hermoso.
Like Saliba, he's outstanding in buildup play. He's excellent in the air, too. This isn't the single best defensive unit Diego Simeone has ever fielded at the Metropolitano, but Hermoso's a sure thing, and I feel he's incredibly underrated at this point.
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| Saliba. Getty |
Heart picks: Dante, Nice, and Wilfried Singo, Monaco
Honestly, Mats Hummels nearly made both the Head and Heart lists. The 34-year-old is playing some of his best ball ever for a Borussia Dortmund team that has been teetering between brilliance (leading the Champions League Group of Death) and mediocrity (10 points back in the Bundesliga race with RB Leipzig on deck) all season. He's been outstanding, but my heart realized there was an even older former Bayern defender I could choose instead.
Nice is PSG's most serious competition in the Ligue 1 race this year and Dante, a 40-year-old center-back, has provided the team's most xPV to date. He's got the most touches, pass attempts and pass completions of any Big Five defender. He's also made the third-most ball recoveries (105), he's well above average in the air, and he's in the top 40 in total defensive interventions.
Dante -- still a thing heading into 2024. Unreal!
If Dante makes my heart happy, Singo makes my heart race. Stats Perform has a stat called "carry overtakes," which is exactly what it sounds like: It's basically when you overtake a defender with a carry. If that definition is unclear to you, just watch a Monaco match. You'll probably see Singo attempt one within a couple minutes of turning the match on. He has completed 21 of them this season; no other Big Five center-back has topped 15. He's very good in customary ways -- good in one-on-ones, great in the air, et cetera -- but the 22-year-old Ivorian's confidence just leaps off of the television screen.
If you like pure, conservative safety from your center-back, he's probably not your guy. But he's my guy.
LEFT BACK
Head pick: Alphonso Davies, Bayern Munich
Obviously a fullback's stats are very dependent on the system in which he plays. Davies' general defensive stats are fine -- he's sixth among Big Five left backs in total ball recoveries and 24th in interceptions, for instance -- but he's a primary ball progression weapon for Thomas Tuchel, and he's been doing as good a job of that as ever. He's third among left backs in total carry distance and both fourth in progressive carries (110) and eighth in progressive passes (59). He's got three assists (third), all in August (two to Harry Kane), and 16 chances created (fifth).
Davies is approaching a big summer -- his contract expires in 2025, so he'll naturally be the subject of millions of transfer rumors between now and then -- but before we do that gross thing where we only talk about where and how he'll play in the future, let's note that in the present, he's doing about as well as he ever has.
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| Alphonso Davies. Getty |
Heart pick: Alex Grimaldo, Bayer Leverkusen
Okay, he's more of a left wingback or left midfielder, but accuracy is never a requirement for the heart. If you want accuracy, watch a Grimaldo free kick. He's one of seven Big Five players to have contributed to three set piece goals (two from free kicks, one from a corner). But he's also scored seven goals in all -- 20th in the Big Five and the most for anyone who wouldn't be considered an attacker or attacking midfielder of some kind -- and he's added four assists to that as well. (This doesn't even include his two Europa League goals or his assist in the first round of the DFB-Pokal.)
It was easy to be impressed with the names Leverkusen brought in this past offseason -- Victor Boniface, Granit Xhaka, Jonas Hofmann -- but the 27-year old Grimaldo, added via free transfer from Benfica, almost flew under the radar. But he's been as vital as any newcomer to Leverkusen's incredible early run.
DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDER
Head pick: Rodri, Manchester City
Sometimes the boring, obvious answer is the right one. Rodri has been the best pivot man in the sport for a while, and that's as true as ever in 2023-24. Among all Big Five midfielders, he's both received the second-most passes (1,026) and delivered the fourth-most progressive passes (164) and the sixth-most passes into the attacking third (150). For as complex as Pep Guardiola's tactics can be, a lot of City's buildup and transition play seems to simply boil down to "Find Rodri."
It's probably not a coincidence that Manchester City's two league losses this season were the two games he didn't play.
Heart pick: Benjamin André, Lille
Ligue 1 is a fun mix of thrilling, young up-and-comers and aging veterans; most of those veterans return to the league after a stint elsewhere, but Andre never left. This is the 33-year-old's 16th season in France, and he's filling up the stat sheet for a Lille team that started slowly (and takes too many draws), but is first in its Conference League group and within three points of second in Ligue 1.
Among Big Five midfielders, Andre is eighth in both ball recoveries and total carries. And he's quite possibly been the best player in the Conference League group stage -- he's first in the tournament in progressive carries, second in progressive passes completed, third in total touches and fifth in ball recoveries. If you watch a Lille match in whatever competition, he's just always there, always doing something.
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| Benjamin André. Getty |
CENTRAL/ATTACKING MIDFIELDERS
Head picks: Jude Bellingham, Real Madrid, and Aleix García, Girona
Two years ago, Jude Bellingham was an 18-year-old stalwart, a defensive midfielder with great defensive instincts and an aggressive streak. He could push the ball up the pitch with the best of them, but Borussia Dortmund had to keep on him to get involved more in the attacking phase.
"He's playing like he's 30. It's unbelievable," BVB assistant Otto Addo said in 2022, "and maybe it sounds funny, but still there's room to improve. Defensively, he's doing very, very well. Offensively, we show him a lot of clips where he could have scored a goal, but he's a brilliant player. Surely he can sometimes be more efficient up front."
Surely.
Two years later, Bellingham is at the moment Real Madrid's savior, coming through time and again to keep an injury-plagued team atop the LaLiga table. He can still intervene with the best of them, but if we look at play both within the Big Five and the UEFA competitions, the only players who have more combined goals and assists than the 20-year old are Harry Kane, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe. He's still a midfielder, fulfilling all of the roles you want from such a position. But he's become one of the best attackers in the world too. The trajectory of his pure skill compilation is shocking.
Bellingham's name here was obvious. The other one might not have been. But when it comes to helping the move the ball from Point A to a far more dangerous Point B, Garcia's been one of the best players in the world this season:
"Garcia, a midfielder, got lost in the shuffle coming up through the Manchester City ranks and ended up making transfers to Dinamo Bucharest, Eibar and Girona in an approximately 10-month span in 2020-21. But with Girona, he has found himself, fulfilling all sorts of defensive midfield and ball progression roles while also scoring three goals with four assists from 26 chances created. He does everything, and he just got his first cap with Spain's national team ... because of it."
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| Aleix García. Getty |
Heart picks: James Maddison, Spurs, and Isco, Real Betis
Like Rodri or Alisson, Maddison is another player who has both produced mega-stats this year and proved his value through injury. In his 11 league appearances with Tottenham this season, Maddison has three goals and five assists from 31 chances created. In Spurs' three matches without him -- he suffered ankle ligament damage against Chelsea in early-November -- they've lost twice with one draw. Granted, they've scored five goals in those three matches, too, but go with it: Maddison's been awesome. In the new, Harry Kane-less Spurs attack, Maddison's importance has been second only to Son Heung-Min's.
Then there's Isco. It was easy to forget about him as he slowly got lost in the shuffle at Real Madrid. He dropped under 1,200 league minutes with the Blancos in 2018-19, then managed just 1,239 combined in his last two seasons there. After a brief cameo with Sevilla last year, he landed in a different part of Seville this season. Anything good that Real Betis has accomplished in attack this year -- which, admittedly, isn't a ton (they're 10th in the league in scoring with just 18 goals in 15 matches) -- has come from something Isco has done.
The 31-year-old ranks second in LaLiga in chances created, passes in the final third and completed crosses. He's third in progressive carries and the sexiest of all passes, throughballs. He's eighth in combined expected goals and expected assists (xG+xA) and ninth in progressive passes. He helps the ball get into the final third, and then he orchestrates everything that happens thereafter.
Isco might not be quite as athletically gifted as the 24-year old who combined 10 goals and nine assists for Real Madrid in 2016-17, but he might be close to those numbers right now if he still had Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema to pass to.
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| James Maddison. Getty |
RIGHT WINGER
Head pick: Mohamed Salah, Liverpool
Back to Ryan O'Hanlon's MVPs piece: "While perhaps he's lost some of the physical capacity to get into the box and score as many goals as he used to, he's made up for it by becoming a devastating creative passer from the right wing."
Indeed, Salah has long been one of the best goal-scorers in Europe, and he's attempting fewer shots in league play (2.9 per 90 minutes) than at any point in his Liverpool career. But his shot quality is up dramatically -- he's averaging 0.26 xG per shot and 0.20 per non-penalty shot in the Premier League (his career bests before this season were 0.17 and 0.16, respectively) -- and both his 0.44 assists and 0.27 expected assists are his highest on record. He's picking his spots almost perfectly, and for all we might want to talk about his aging, he remains fifth in the Big Five in combined goals and assists.
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| Mohamed Salah. Getty |
Heart pick: Ousmane Dembélé, PSG
As with Kvicha Kvaratskhelia (more on him later), there's a special place in my heart for players who just try stuff. And Dembele is going to push the ball come hell or high water.
Because Luis Enrique only plays him about 65 minutes per match (which, with his injury history, makes some sense), the 26-year old has recorded only 856 league minutes this season. But he's still tied for eighth in the entire Big Five in assists (five) and 10th in chances created (36), and he's an incredible second in carries of 10-plus meters and ninth in progressive carries.
Why is that incredible? Because carries are generally a defender's or midfielder's domain. All eight of the players above him on the progressive carries list are center-backs, and Dembele and Isco are the only two attackers/attacking midfielders in the top 20. (I evidently have a type.) But Dembele pushes and pushes and pushes, and combined with the fact that he's a reasonably willing presser, he's almost a perfect weapon for Enrique to pair with Mbappe. As long as he can keep him healthy, anyway.
CENTER FORWARD
Head pick: Harry Kane, Bayern Munich
I mean, come on:
"Kane has already produced 17 goals and five assists. That's as many goals as he scored in the 2018-19 and 2021-22 Premier League seasons -- when he respectively ranked sixth and fourth in the league, by the way! -- and more assists than he produced in all but three seasons. [...] Throw in five Champions League matches, and he's at 21 goals and seven assists. It's not even December yet."
I wrote that on Nov. 24. He scored another goal hours later. He's been the most productive player in Europe by a considerable margin this season. For as good as Erling Haaland is and will be, there's only one choice in this spot.
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| Harry Kane. Getty |
Heart pick: Victor Boniface, Bayer Leverkusen
As a fan or writer, there are few better feelings when (a) a player from a lower league catches your eye, and you think "Damn, I think this guy's going to be really good soon," (b) said player makes a move to an attractive club, and you think, "Damn, I really like this move," and (c) he exceeds even your wildest expectations.
Victor Boniface was one of the stars of both last year's Europa League (six goals and two assists in 10 matches) and Belgium's Jupiler Pro League (seven goals and seven assists in 31), and I was convinced I was watching a future star. Leverkusen signing him was one of my favorite moves of the summer, and I still didn't know we'd be watching him post 14 goals and six assists in just 20 matches in all competitions. He's big and strong, but he tries take-ons like his name is Kvaratskhelia, and he just generates truckloads of shot attempts - more than five per 90 minutes.
There might not be anyone in Europe more enjoyable to watch at the moment. I guess that might go for both Boniface and Bayer Leverkusen.
LEFT WINGER
Head pick: Kylian Mbappe, PSG
We only tend to notice or talk about PSG when they lose. We noticed when they only pulled eight points from their first league matches, but we stopped talking about them when their league form came together. They're second in the Champions League Group of Death, but we've really only talked about their two losses (and a semi-lucky draw). They can only disappoint us.
It's the same story with Mbappe. It always feels like he could do more in terms of pressing and defending (and it seems likely he hears the same from manager Luis Enrique pretty constantly), but he's paid absurd amounts to do one thing -- score loads of goals -- and he does it. Only Kane and Haaland have generated more goals and assists in league play, and he's got three goals in five Champions League matches as well. He's still Kylian Mbappe.
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| Kylian Mbappé. Getty |
Heart pick: Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Napoli
The heart always falls for the artiste. And despite how disappointing Napoli's season has been thus far -- the defending Scudetto winners are currently fifth in Serie A, 11 points behind Inter (by whom they got thumped 3-0 on Sunday), "Kvaradona" is still producing occasional magic out wide. He missed the start of the season, but he still leads the team with 3.9 xPV created in just 1,368 minutes. And while he's recorded just 943 league minutes, he's seventh in the Big Five in carry overtakes and carries of 10-plus meters, and he's 10th in take-ons.
He'll try a one-on-one on anybody, and for all of the reasons why Napoli has underachieved this fall, he's not one of them.
- Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff Writer
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