Tonali, Bastoni and Leao – Serie A stars top lists in CIES most impactful U25 players

Sandro Tonali, Alessandro Bastoni and Rafael Leao topped their respective categories in the CIES’ most impactful U25 players worldwide list.

The CIES Football Observatory evaluated players across the world in specific categories, using statistics and other metrics to determine which players were the most impactful in their roles across the pitch. The basis of the analysis focused on eight different aspects of on-pitch performance: air defence, ground defence, recovery, distribution, take on, chance creation, air attack and shooting.

The players were given a score out of 100, based on their qualities and stats from the eight listed aspects, and a number of Serie A stars topped their respective categories.

Topping the ‘Blocker playmaker’ list was Inter centre back Alessandro Bastoni, who boasts a score of 100, higher than Bayern Munich’s Dayot Upamecano, Real Madrid’s Aurelien Tchouameni and Milan’s Fikayo Tomori.

Joining him at the top of his respective category was teammate Federico Dimarco, who was the highest rated ‘Playmaker infiltrator’ with a score of 90, above others like Rayo Vallecano’s Fran Garcia and Aston Villa’s Jacob Ramsey.

Milan midfielder Sandro Tonali was the highest rated ‘Playmaker creator’ with a score of 89.3, finishing ahead of Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella and Paranaense’s Abner Vinicius. 

Finally, Rafael Leao topped the ‘Shoot infiltrator’ rankings with a score of 98.4, just above Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe and Bayern Munich’s Jamal Musiala.

Napoli forward Victor Osimhen was close to joining his Serie A counterparts at the top of his list, ‘Target man shooter’, but his 93.3 score was just beaten by Chelsea’s Kai Havertz, who was awarded a score of 94.3.