Across Europe this season we have seen some excellent performances from some outstanding players. Players from Spain, England, Italy, France and Germany have provided us with some outrageous performances, but from all of the top leagues, who has been the most impressive this campaign?
Players like N’Golo Kante and Paulo Dybala have been outstanding, as we would expect, but what about other, unsung talents? Here, we will rank them, the top 10 players across Europe’s top leagues of the 2016/17 season.
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#10 Ousmane Dembele
This kid has some serious talent, talent that could make him one of the best in the world! After joining Borussia Dortmund last summer on the back of a fantastic breakout season in Ligue 1 for boyhood club Rennes, many were expecting the young Frenchman to join a club like Real Madrid or Barcelona, but instead, he joined Dortmund in a bid to get more game time, and that move has paid off!
This season, Dembele has been one of the standout players not only in the Bundesliga but in Europe as well.
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Fast, direct and full of tricks, Dembele has been the ideal partner for Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and has provided the forward with most of his goals this season. Arguably, Dembele is one of the most important players for Dortmund, and has been one of the reasons why they have made it to the Champions League quarter-finals, registering 5 assists in 8 appearances in the competition.
Of course, the young Frenchman is performing incredibly well at the moment, but he will for sure be in the running for World Player of the Year in years to come. His contribution to the team is quite staggering considering his quick rise to the top. Seven goals in 35 appearances may not seem like a lot, but Dembele is a throwback style winger and his 15 assists across all competitions shows you what kind of player he is.
#9 Paulo Dybala
What a player Dybala has been for Juventus this season! His partnership with Gonzalo Higuain has allowed the former Real Madrid striker to settle into life in Turin easily and made him deadly in front of goal too. Not only has Dybala helped Higuain, but he’s proven to a lot of people that his ability is outstanding and could easily be the best player in the world in about 2-3 years.
Dybala has the incredible talent of being able to make a goal-scoring opportunity out of practically nothing and can almost win a game on his own. His passion, drive, hunger and ambition has made him a fan favourite at Juventus, and it looks like he can be their new hero.
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After missing a large portion of the season with a muscular problem, Dybala has done exceptionally well to find his form so quickly. One game that springs to mind is Juventus’ victory over Palermo recently, where a Dybala double and assist helped the Bianconeri pick up three valuable points, and helped boost Dybala’s stats this season to an impressive 13 goals and 7 assists.
Many people have linked Dybala with a move away from the Italian champions but if he was to stay in with the Bianconeri, he could be the player that future teams are built around, much like they were with club legend’s Michel Platini, Roberto Baggio and Alessandro Del Piero.
#8 Bernardo Silva
This season in France has been all about Monaco and their high-scoring side, but one star from the club this season has been Portuguese winger Bernardo Silva. The 22-year-old has caught the eye of most of the top clubs in Europe with his incredible ability, which he has successfully showcased in Ligue 1 and in some huge games in the Champions League.
His performances home and away against Tottenham Hotspur and against Manchester City in the Champions League ties made him stand out on the big stage, and proved he is a true match winner.
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From the start of the Ligue 1 season, Bernardo Silva has been lighting up France with his displays and could be on his way to helping Monaco take the Ligue 1 title away from Paris Saint-Germain for the first time in four years. Nine goals, nine assists, huge goals in the match against Paris Saint-Germain at the Parc des Princes to gain a point, and a double against Marseille has helped side maintain their lead at the top of Ligue 1 table.
If he continues to perform at these high standards, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he signed for a top club next season as he certainly has all the ability in the world to be one of the best, and the versatile 22-year-old is set to be a star of the game.
#7 Dries Mertens
When Napoli sold top scorer Gonzalo Higuain to Juventus in the summer and replaced him with Polish striker Arkadiusz Milik, many expected the former Ajax striker to be an ideal replacement for Higuain, given his impressive goal scoring stats in Holland. However, when Milik suffered a serious injury early on in the season, Dries Mertens was given the task to score the goals for Napoli and he’s proven to be almost like a new signing.
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The Belgian forward had never truly found consistency in Naples but in this season, he has been on fire in the middle of a front three, scoring an outstanding 25 goals in 35 games, including multiple braces and hat tricks and one four-goal-haul in an incredible performance against Torino.
Not only has Mertens been on form goal scoring wise but also helped Napoli to become one of the best attacking sides to watch this season across the continent. The attacking style that manager Maurizio Sarri has implemented on the side also means that Mertens has picked 11 assists.
#6 Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Big things were expected from the former Inter, Milan, Juventus and Barcelona striker as he left Ligue 1 champions Paris Saint-Germain to join English giants Manchester United in what was possibly the biggest test of his career.
One criticism of Ibrahimovic was that he was never able to perform against English sides, so to see the effect that Zlatan has had at Manchester United shows that he is just like fine wine and simply gets better with age. Many had expected Ibrahimovic to struggle in England, but his record this season suggests anything but that. 26 goals across four competitions, and his double in the EFL Cup final helped United win their second trophy in as many years.
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For his age, Ibrahimovic has shown that he can go to almost any top league in Europe and deliver, and Jose Mourinho has time and again spoken of his admiration for the Swedish legend. With all the rumours about Manchester United signing a new striker in the summer, if Ibrahimovic is still at the club next season, the new signing will find it quite a challenge to dethrone the newly crowned king of Old Trafford.
His hold up play brings other into the action and makes the rest of the team improve drastically, too. Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Juan Mata have all benefitted from having Ibrahimovic up front, and United can thank him if they manage to obtain Champions League football next season.
Not only that, but his fitness has been outstanding, completing just under 3,500 hours of football, which is incredible considering his age.
#5 Eden Hazard
Eden Hazard has been absolutely outstanding this season for Chelsea, as he has been an important figure in Antonio Conte’s side who have taken an impressive lead in the Premier League this season. His numbers may not be as high as the likes of Cavani or Messi, but 11 goals and five assists across the season have been impressive for someone who was so poor last season.
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Conte’s arrival has allowed Hazard to express himself even more than before and rediscover the form he had when Chelsea last won the Premier League in 2014/15. His attacking play can be inspirational at times and can win games on his own at times, especially like he did against Arsenal earlier in the year, where he tore the Arsenal midfield and defence to pieces as Chelsea romped to a 3-1 victory.
If The Blues goes on to win the Premier League this season, which looks likely, a lot of credit will go to Hazard for having the match-winning spark to bring home all three points. He has probably been the best player in the Premier League this season and will likely be odds-on favourite for all the individual awards towards the end of the season.
#4 Neymar
Everyone knew Neymar would be special, but his rise to prominence has been outstanding when one consider the competition he has in his own Barcelona team, let alone across the rest of La Liga and Europe. Some big goals and huge assists have shown everyone that when the going gets tough, Neymar gets going; with an incredible bunch of statistics to make his season look even more impressive.
14 goals across La Liga, the Champions League and the Copa Del Rey is a good record, but where the Brazilian stands out is in the assists column, where he’s helped the likes of Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez a total of 21 times.
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The 25-year-old has matured this season, and has grown into a match winner at Barcelona. Take the recent Champions League comeback against Paris Saint-Germain, where Neymar singlehandedly won the game for Barcelona and dragged them out of a rut following the Edinson Cavani away goal that looked set to kill the tie.
His free kick and dinked ball into the box for the winner was what won Barcelona the game, and he showed leadership in tight situations, an incredible trait to have at such a young age.
He looks like a proper footballer now and has added that extra bit of mental steel to take him to the next level, and can easily break out from the rest of the MSN and join Lionel Messi on a different level from the rest of the footballing world.
#3 Cristiano Ronaldo
It hasn’t been the most prolific season for Cristiano Ronaldo, and his role within the team has slightly changed since the appointment of Zinedine Zidane as Real Madrid manager, but that doesn’t mean CR7 hasn’t been effective.
26 goals in all competitions, including 19 in La Liga, has helped Real Madrid reach the summit of the Spanish Division and into the latter stages of the Champions League. But it’s in the Champions League where Ronaldo has slightly faltered, only hitting the back of the net twice since the start of the competition.
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Nevertheless, two hat-tricks against Alaves and in the Madrid derby shows that even at the age of 32, Ronaldo is still incredibly important to this Madrid side, but it has also shown that he is not invincible. If he can fire Real Madrid to the La Liga title and another Champions League, then he will likely win the World Player of the Year once again, and if he plays a vital role to his side’s success, that will be very hard to argue with.
#2 Edinson Cavani
When Zlatan Ibrahimovic left PSG in the summer, it was expected that Edinson Cavani would have to step out of the shadow of the big Swede and take his chance as the main striker for the Paris club, and this season he has really come out and been in the form of his life.
At the time of writing, El Matador is 13 goals away from breaking the record for most goals scored in a single season for PSG, set ironically by Ibrahimovic, and has pretty much got the Ligue 1 golden boot wrapped up.
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Despite his amazing goal record, there remains one criticism that Cavani needs about 4-5 chances to score a goal, and even though he has scored an incredible amount of goals this season, Cavani always leaves one with the feeling he could have had more in a game.
That being said, in a difficult season for the Ligue 1 champions, Cavani has been on top of his game and his goals have been a huge reason for them remaining in the title race in France. His 38 goals is one of the best records in Europe at the time of writing, and has shown that without the influence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Cavani can be the main striker for a big club.
#1 Lionel Messi
The season so far has been tough for Barcelona. They may be near the top of La Liga and into the quarter-finals of the Champions League, but manager Luis Enrique has announced that he is on his way out at the end of the season and the future of star player Lionel Messi is still uncertain. The club is in a bit of a crisis (at least in their version of a crisis) but Messi has once again shown how important he is to the club on the pitch.
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Many have almost forgotten about Messi at times, and whilst Edinson Cavani gets praise for his outstanding goal record, Messi actually has more goals in the same amount of games, scoring 39 goals in 38 games. 11 of those have come in the Champions League, and the Argentina captain will be determined to add at least another trophy to his already incredible trophy cabinet.
His leadership has been key in vital moments of the season and his magic is one of the reasons why Barcelona are still challenging to get to top spot of La Liga. Messi may only have scored two hat-tricks this season, against Celtic and Manchester City in the Champions League, but eight doubles across the season have been a huge reason as to why Barcelona have been so good at certain times this season.
