La Liga First Team
A quick break from the Bundesliga lineup to run through La Liga.
The obvious player of the season is of course Lionel Messi. He plays more passes per minute than Casemiro, advances the ball into the Danger Zone more than Iago Aspas and Karim Benzema combined, has 4 more goals than the 2nd placed guy, and of course leads attacking players by a country mile in yardage gained per minute:
Messi...Messi
Other Attackers: Wissam Ben Yedder (Sevilla), Pablo Sarabia (Sevilla), Antoine Griezmann (Atletico)
Just Missed: Andre Silva (Sevilla), Borja Iglesias (Espanyol), Roger (Levante)
Sevilla have had an electrifying attack that has run almost completely through Ben Yedder-Sarabia-Silva. Ben Yedder and Silva look almost identical when you look at their underlying stats:
Ben Yedder gets the nod by a hair while Sarabia is the man making it all happen. Players with at least 0.4 xG and 0.4 xA per 90 in Big 4 leagues: Lionel Messi, Eden Hazard, Thorgan Hazard, and Pablo Sarabia. Good company. He's a yardage gainer in dangerous positions, one of the rarer player types out there.
Griezmann is all alone up top for Atletico way too often. The second leading player in xG/90 among regulars is center back Diego Godin, in xA it's Juanfran and Angel Correa, way back. Thomas Lemar cost a ton of money but he plays deeper offensively than Luka Modric and is 155th at progressing the ball into danger areas, behind such luminaries as Carlos Akapo and Jorge Miraman. Lemar hasn't fit at all into Atleti's offense, he seems like a luxury piece that keeps a forward tilting attack moving smoothly, not whatever this Atleti teams thinks their attack is.
Diego Costa no longer shoots: he took 1 shot in the box per 90 before officially going down with the injury. With partners like these in attack, what Griezmann is doing is impressive: he gets involved a lot by passing every third minute and is in the top 10 percent in both Danger Zone progressions and shot rate on an atrocious Atleti attack.
Where are all the Real Madrid players? It's very odd not seeing any popping up for attacking stats really, and reflective of serious problems. Karim Benzema (10th) is only Real Madrid player in the top 20 in xG and they don't have any player in the top 20 in xA.
Midfield
Toni Kroos, Dani Parejo (Valencia), Ivan Rakitic, Rodrigo (Atletico)
Dani Parejo vs Ever Banega is an interesting debate because they have both racked up rather impressive passing numbers outside one of the big two teams. Now, Sevilla as a whole have super-charged passing numbers across the board which makes Parejo stand out a bit more there. Parejo also progresses the ball better than Banega has from a more advanced position (Banega as deep as Rodrigo from Atleti) but the big tie-breaker was the defensive numbers. Only cellar-dwellers Levante allow a higher proportion of central midfield passes to lead to shots within 12 seconds than Sevilla do. Valencia on the other hand trail only Atletico on the other end of that table. Playing such a prominent role in such a porous midfield sees Banega seriously docked and Parejo on the team of the first half.
Kroos as always tops basically every passing metric I've ever seen. Rodrigo leads the as previously mentioned shutdown midfield and is probably the best tackler in the league. Ivan Rakitic leads the league in interceptions for a midfielder and is right up there in the Fearsome Foursome as far as yardage gobbled by midfielders. Really it's more of Kroos and then a Terror-Causing Trio of Parejo, Banega and Rakitic.
Just Missed: Coutinho, Modric, Granero (Espanyol), Fornals (Villarreal), Joan Jordan (Eibar), Beñat Extebarria (Athletic Bilbao)
Fullbacks
Filipe Luis, Jordi Alba
Just Missed: Marcelo, Ruben Pena (Eibar), Alex Moreno (Rayo), Jesus Navas (Sevilla)
Which fullback gains their team the most yards per minute this season? The obvious afroed answer in Marcelo, right? Well yes the obvious afroed answer is Marcelo but he is not the right answer to the question, that is Ruben Pena of Eibar. He loses the ball a ton though and while his right side has been shot-suppressing well, Eibar's problem is never shot-suppression but extremely high quality shots allowed, which is tougher to evaluate over a short period of time. Marcelo and Navas put the ball into danger areas more than almost all attacking players, but their sides are so porous I can't quite put them on the first team.
Center Backs
Juanpe (Girona), Ezequiel Garay (Valencia)
Just Missed: Aissa Mandi (Betis), Gerard Pique (Barcelona), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Leandro Cabera (Getafe), Dimitrios Siovas (Leganes)
Barcelona and Real Madrid are giving up too much to recognize their center backs on the team of the season. Center back is so hard to evaluate, I went with strong passers and progressors who play well in the air on teams who aren't allowing much when the ball gets central.
Cabrera is a specimen, one of the most dominant players in the air I've seen. He's winning 82% of his nearly 6 duels per game, the best % of any high volume dueler in a Big 4 league. He also leads all center backs in yards per pass because he just boots it long every time he gets it and completes barely 50% of his passes. A good, old-fashioned defender.