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Big thread here looking at the most progressive players in Europe’s big 5 leagues for both dribbling and passing. Starting off with a basic scatter, where Messi and Neymar are unsurprisingly the standouts.
I’ll be using these progressive passing and progressive dribbling scores for the rest of the thread.
Leaders for progressive passing score. Fullbacks clearly dominate, as almost all clubs utilize them the most to get the ball up the pitch, especially those with a direct style like Getafe. But then, there’s Neymar. Trent and Trippier also stand out for doing this in bigger sides.
Leaders for progressive dribbling score. A lot of big name forwards here as expected. Some standouts for me are Boga, Chouiar, and Nguette. Surprisingly no Sancho though, a trend which will continue.
Now to break those down by position group, starting with defenders and their passing. Largely the same as the all-position one due to the high scoring of fullbacks, but Nacho sneaks in in place of Neymar.
Passing scores for midfielders. Completely disagree with the FB Ref classification of Neymar as a midfielder, but it doesn’t matter too much. Some real ballers here like De Bruyne and Luis Alberto, then some less-known names like Mangani and Cigarini.
Passing for forwards. You can see how much quicker we start to see players below the median (represented by red color). This makes those tallies for Messi, Kains, Payet, Di Maria, and Buendia even more impressive. Kainz seems like a great player, might have to look more into him.
Time for dribbling progression by position group. No surprise as Davies comes out on top for defenders. Not sure how much Martins belongs here, but impressive nonetheless. Ghislain Konan is the big surprise here for me.
Just as he did for passing, Neymar tops midfielders for dribbling. Chouiar up there with some big names again. Impressive stuff from Sanches and Ndombele here, as most of the others are more winger/attacking midfielder types.
Messi follows in Neymar’s footsteps with another 1st place finish. A lot of familiar faces here from the all-positions list, but Michail Antonio surprised me. Also, Sancho barely sneaks in here at the bottom.
Now it’s time for only youngsters and wonderkids. We begin with the passing leaderboard for U23’s. Trent with a MASSIVE win followed by many of his fellow fullbacks. Don’t worry, we’ll give other positions a chance next.
Here we have only our U23 midfielders and forwards, and boy there is a lot of talent on display. Buendia looking excellent. “Raphinha” from Stade Rennes up near some bigger names. Tonali shines especially as the highest of all deep-lying playmakers.
Now for U23 dribbling, more of what we’ve seen already with a few new faces at the bottom. I’ll take this moment to highlight Buendia for putting up elite numbers in both passing and dribbling, all while in a weaker side.
Finally, I send you off with the leaders for total progressive score - passing+dribbling. Messi/Neymar ahead of all these fullbacks is just ridiculous, and it also shows how much Neymar has evolved to become “Messi-like”.
Well, that’s all for today. If you’re still here, I appreciate it a lot and feel free to drop me some feedback or any thoughts on the thread.
