Kevin De Bruyne on the podium of the world's most powerful players
According to the CIES Football Observatory, the Red Devil is currently the third most influential player on the planet.
The CIES Football Observatory is a research group within the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES), an independent research centre based in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Founded in 2005 by Dr Raffaele Poli and Dr Loïc Ravenel, it specialises in the statistical analysis of football using quantitative methods.
The CIES has just presented a ranking of the players who have performed best in the area of take on during the last year on the basis of a quantitative index that takes account of the frequency of successful dribbles and crosses, playing time, and the sporting level of the matches played. Only professional footballers who have played at least 1,000 minutes in the last 365 days have been included in this ranking.
Kevin De Bruyne scored 98.4 out of an index of 100. The Red Devil, who plays as an attacking midfielder for the English team Manchester City, ranks behind Catalan Ousmane Dembélé (100) and Madrid's Vinicius (98.7).
Note also that Bayern newcomer João Cancelo is the defensive profile with the most strikes, Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Ângelo Gabriel (Santos FC) and Jamal Musiala (Bayern) are the youngest, and the evergreen Luka Modrić (Real Madrid) is the veteran of these rankings.
The Red Devil confirms that he is at the top of his game in terms of statistics, having won the trophy for the best player in the English league at the end of the last season.