The CIES Football Observatory has developed an exclusive approach to measure the technical performance of players on an objective basis using data provided by OptaPro. Issue number 256 of the Weekly Post presents the best performing big-5 league footballers for last 1,000 minutes played. The rankings only include players fielded for at least 630 minutes since January 1st 2019.

Four Atalanta players are in the best XI for Serie A: Timothy Castagne, Josip Iličić, Papu Gómez and Duván Zapata. The only Juventus player fielded for at least 630 domestic league minutes in 2019 is also present in the best formation: Daniele Rugani. Five Barcelona footballers figure in the Liga’s best XI, including Lionel Messi.

The most represented teams in the remaining leagues are Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga (four players), Manchester City in the Premier League (five players) and Paris St-Germain in the Ligue 1 (six players). The youngest  footballers per league are Gianluigi Donnarumma, Sergio Reguilón, Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Kylian Mbappé.