Champions League team of the tournament: Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal, Raphinha and PSG’s Ousmane Dembele headline

There can be Another Champions League match that still has to play But with 188 already done and sprinkled, it now seems a good time as someone to call our team of the season. The first year of a new format has plenty of drama and surprises, from the near-missers of Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain in the competition phase to the rapid rise of the last of the play-offs to finalists.

It has also been a season that has yielded a large number of turns for making stars. Lamine Yamal went from a clear young thing to a contender for the title of best player in the game before his 18th birthday, while Raphinha, less than a year after it made available to Barcelona, ​​completely swept him for him. In the meantime,. Few who have seen it will forget the stunning free kick brace of Declan Rice to eliminate Real Madrid.

Do those performances that play a place in the team of the season? Let’s find out:

GK: David Raya, Arsenal

Probably the most competitive place in the XI what with the heroic deeds of both Gianluigi Donarumma and Yann Sommer in the knockout phases. Both are worth a place in this team par excellence, but have one of them saved two penalties in the Champions League? They didn’t do that, but David Raya did it. The Arsenal goalkeeper was excellent from the start of the competition to his own end and denied Mateo Retegui in Bergamo and Vitinha in Paris.

Raya misses the enormous amount of rescues that Sommer delivered, but the only goalkeeper who gave fewer goals than he was every 90 minutes was Alisson, who nowhere was close to the competition. With a relatively small number of shots on Doel-Hij stood compared to 41 to Donnarummas 51 and Sommer’s 58 registered the Spaniard still the most goals that were prevented, a metric that assessed goals versus the Post-Shot XG value of the attempt, of everyone in the tournament with 5.86.

RB: Achraf Hakimi, PSG

If you want an idea of ​​how versatile Achraf Hakimi’s value is for Paris Saint-Germain, look at the second stage of the semi-final of the Champions League. The first thing you will see is an excellent goal of aggressive pressing on the field in the type of underloping area that is the Moroccan exploits and every right to play. Then it can become clear that he won the ball back a lot of — He still has 20 ball recovery than anyone else in the competition – and carries it even more ahead. He also did it in pace, with more of the pitch through high intensity runs than anyone on both sides (0.75 miles).

That was just a standard game for Hakimi, one of the best players in the Champions League this season.

CB: Alexsandro, Lille

Marquinhos can be done a little hard here, but look, I have checked with the suits above and they tell me that we cannot just have the entire PSG XI. After all, there is one lock in Inter -colors to fit. Before we come to him, the other back of the middle back has a few seductive options, especially in view of the fact that we are not worried about playing two left -sided options. The passing numbers of Nico Schlotterbeck are showy, Virgil van Dijk was rarely slightly less than excellent, while Antonio Silva proved at a young age as an fearless defender.

Checked Alexsandro, who was certainly busy when Lille brought his way by trying qualifying rounds before making the round of 16 in an impressive way. Their Brazilian center was particularly impressive in the victories over Madrids Atletico and Real that this turned into a fairy -tale European season for Dogues And could hardly have felt that he could have done it more, because Lille came just before Borussia Dortmund. Strong in the clearings and reliable with the ball at his feet, he seems to be on his way to a Premier League movement in the near future.

CB: Alessandro Bastoni, Inter

Alessandro Bastoni would earn a place in this team on his defense alone. The Italian international reads the game excellent, he will not set the statistics magazine with his interceptions and tackles, but he has a great sense of where an attack is going and is a tendency to be long before he has to do something as flashy as a boot put in it.

What Bastoni really stands out is what he does with the ball at his feet. Registering approximately as much in the last third part as a high -quality ball of Progressors such as Theo Hernandez and Rodrigo de Paul in just a shadow is particularly impressive, just like his ability to step out of the line of defense and receive the ball.

LB: Nuno Mendes, PSG

Take a look at all those times that Nuno Mendes brought the ball back for PSG.

That’s a lot to get the ball back. Mendes is perhaps the most lockdown defender in the Champions League this season.

Cm: vitinha, psg

Luis Enrique calls him “the perfect midfielder”. Yes, that’s about good. During this excellent season it is difficult to remember that Vitinha is breaking sweat or runs into a sprint. And yet he is always where he should be, to be seen for a pass or functions as the sweeper behind the first line of the PSG press. Nobody has made passes in this competition and although much of them are about control, he is always able to shoot a cross in an undisproved place when the moment brings him.

For 89 minutes he is the invisible hand that controls the flow of the game. Then he will do something to blow away the other team.

CM: Joshua Kimmich, Bavaria Munich

The majority of this team calls itself before you even start digging around the statistics. Of course Vitinha, Bastoni and * Spoiler Alert * Raphinha come in here. And it is not in itself a shock that Joshua Kimmich is joining them. He is one of the excellent midfielders of the past decade. It may not be clear how important he has been until you see it outlined in numerical form.

Kimmich, mainly used in a double pivot, created as many opportunities in this season’s Champions League as every player. Every 90 minutes he improves the will of Kevin De Bruyne and Angel di Maria, who is just behind Raphinha in the 10th. Kimmich On average 15.3 goes in the last third part. No one else even reached 14. Nobody has gotten the ball in the box more often, just look at how accurately he passes the ball in those spaces.

Thomas Tuchel once doubted the value of Kimmich as a midfielder. Consider those doubts that have been rejected in an emphatic way.

CM: Pedri, Barcelona

You will look at this team and think: “This blistering idiot has forgotten to call a good DM”. To which I will say, what a fool you are. Look again and tell me who leads the Champions League in blocks. Pedri, the type of player that demands to be labeled with a diminutive player, has more tackles than all bar four players in the competition. And yes, it helps that he played 1117 minutes (much but no more than some quarter -finalists), but this is one of the best creative midfielders in Europe and also offers excellent defensive figures.

And as is apparent from the image above, Pedri is still creative.

RW: Lamine Yamal, Barcelona

I will tell you now, there will be no surprises in the attack. There was half an argument for Jimmy a center ahead from position to get the joint scorer of the competition in the side, but the 13 goals of Serhou Guirassy include five penalties. They still count for sure, just not for so much in this exercise. In Pure Output, Bukayo Saka also corresponds to the player who gets the nod here.

At a certain moment, however, adjustments must be made for when that output comes and the age at which it comes. Compared to most, Saka would come forward, but not Yamal, who in only 17 years of the best individual versions that the Champions League has seen in years and did at the most critical moments. He earns this for his performances against only inherd.

ST: Ousmane Dembele, PSG

Eight Champions League goals since the turn of the year, all of which were in the actual knockout matches for PSG after their slow start: how unlikely did this seem when Ousmane Dembele was falling off the side that went to the Emirates Stadium for the first time this season? Even the player who had started picking up shape since leaving Barcelona never profiled as an elite scorer, but maybe that should change. As Thierry Henry said after his second trip to Noord -Londen, the game where he broke Arsenal Hearts,

“I’m starting to take that seriously,” he said. “He will now have to prove it season after the season, but before people just asked him to hit the target. We could get the target to scoring that number of goals. It’s crazy, ridiculous.”

It can also be the norm for him. After all, it is not as if Dembele has been about his skis this season in terms of output. It is on average 0.66 xg per 90 and 0.67 goals in the Champions League game. In addition to breathola lookman, he is one of only two players in the competition to make five shots per 90, a number that has kept relatively firm since the knock phase started. The second half of this season may seem like the ultimate purple patch for Dembele, but maybe we have to get used to it.

LW: Raphina, Barclona

I mean clearly. When Ronaldo and Lionel Messi left the European stage, it seemed impossible that the output they hit at their peak would ever be matched. Instead, with 13 goals and eight assists, Raphinha corresponded to the record of Cristiano Ronaldo for the most target involvement in a Champions League season. Admittedly, his 14 games were three more than Ronaldo needed, but it seems extremely extreme to denigrate the man who gives a goal involvement in any way and half output on the largest stage.

In view of the fact that he did not play in a real Madrid -Superteam, but a budding, talented but vulnerable Barcelona side, this could ever have fallen as the largest Champions League campaign ever as the Blaugrana Had just found their way past inter and in a final they won. Instead, he is without a doubt the player of the season.