Three teenagers, playing for the two German giants, made it to UEFA’s Champions League breakthrough team of the year. Ousmane Dembele and Christian Pulisic from Borussia Dortmund and Renato Sanches of Bayern Munich were announced as part of the team that had Zinedine Zidane as the manager.
In his first year in charge of Real Madrid, Zidane has already won three trophies – the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup, in what has been a stellar year for Los Blancos. Real have only lost two games in the entire calendar year and are still unbeaten in the 2016/17 season.
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Sanches was a star in Portugal's victorious Euro 2016 campaign and made a €35 million switch from Benfica to Bayern Munich in the summer. He had found it difficult to hit the ground running at Bayern, but he has well and truly settled as part of a Bayern unit that are beginning to look more and more threatening by the day, under Carlo Ancelotti.
Pulisic, 18, is touted as the next big thing in world football and could well go on to become the greatest player ever from the USA. His Dortmund teammate Dembele was signed for big money from Rennes in the summer. He has shown enough glimpses of his potential in the first half of the season and it is safe to say that it is scary to think of how good the Frenchman can become.
Pulisic and Dembele were also joined by the Dortmund team-mate Raphael Guerreiro who joined the German giants from Lorient in the summer. Manchester United target Victor Lindelof also made the team, on the back of his consistent performances for Benfica.
The three-man defence has two players from Barcelona – Samuel Umtiti and Sergi Roberto. Umtiti, since joining Barca from Lyon, has been terrific when he has played. He has displaced the usual centre-back partnership of Gerard Pique and Javier Mascherano and made himself a part of the starting XI for the Catalan giants.
Roberto, on the other hand, has adapted brilliantly to his right-back role. For a central midfielder who was generally involved in the play going forward, it has been a paradigm shift, but one that he has adapted to quite brilliantly.
UEFA Breakthrough team of the year
GK: Alphonse Areola (PSG)
Defenders: Sergi Roberto (Barcelona), Samuel Umtiti (Barcelona), Victor Lindelof (Benfica)
Midfielders: Renato Sanches (Bayern Munich), Joshua Kimmich (Bayern Munich), Thomas Lemar (Monaco), Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund)
Forwards: Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund), Andre Silva (Porto), Ousmane Dembele (Borussia Dortmund)
