The Leap: ¿which U24s have made the most progress in Europe's top five leagues?

Almost four months of uninterrupted league football and continental cup competitions are upon us, shall we celebrate? YES!

What better way to celebrate the start of a period of regularity than to talk about the players who have improved the most compared to last season. Everything is improving. They, the players, are improving too, although not all of them, no. But let’s talk about those who have.

We've selected six under-24 players who have made the most progress in Europe's top five leagues. In most cases, we've used our Score to measure their improvement from last season. Driblab's Score is a rating system that gives each player a score (0 to 100) based on their performance in a number of different metrics. ‍‍

Let’s see who’s made The Leap!

Milos Kerkez - AFC Bournemouth - Left-back

The Hungarian boasts an average Score of 61 points. 19 more than he averaged last season (42), his first in the Premier League. He's made The Leap!

Kerkez's improved performances have gone hand in hand with those of his team. Both have made significant strides in their attacking game. Bournemouth have grown a lot in terms of establishing inside the opposition's third and controlling the game. The Cherries are averaging 2.8 more touches in the opposition box (31.3 - 28.5) and their number of ball progressions in the final third has gone up a level or two this season.

The biggest change, however, has been in their crossing efficiency. Bournemouth have the highest percentage of their xG total coming from crosses of any team in Europe's top five leagues and Kerkez is vital to that.

Left-back Kerkez has been a threat from set-pieces and open play this season. Comparing him to full-backs and wing-backs in the Premier League, and excluding set-pieces, he's 7th in xA generated per game, 6th in crosses completed and 9th in progressive carries. Last year he was 52nd, 19th and 23rd respectively in the Premier League alone.

Iraola has created the perfect environment for him to develop this season. The Basque coach does not often play with five at the back, but there have been situations in Bournemouth's games when one of the midfielders has moved out wide as a makeshift centre-back to allow the full-back on that side to push forward. So he has played effectively as a wing-back at times. He's got loads of talent.

The Cherries have completed 69 crosses from open play. Of those, the Bournemouth left side has taken charge of 60.75%. Looking at the total number of crosses from open play this season, they've taken responsibility for 64.6%.

‍Evann Guessand - OGC Nice - Attacker

The Ivorian has played in a variety of roles this year, making it difficult to pin him down to one position. He has played 53% of his minutes as a striker, sometimes as the main striker, but usually as in a striker partnership linking the team with the other striker, often more of a poacher. The right flank accounts for 32% of his minutes. The rest is split between time on the left flank and time in midfield as an attacking midfielder or playmaker. His positive difference of +18 points in the Score shows that this mobility has served him well to make The Leap.

We've needed Driblab's 15-metric striker radar to really highlight all of Guessand's qualities in one image. Looking at the minutes he's already played, Guessand has just surpassed half of his game time from last season, even if it's only 12 matches played this time around. What's more, his goal tally (6G + 2A) is already better than last season's (6G).

His finishing has been way better than last year's (22.9% vs. 9.09%), despite generating the same number of xG per shot (0.15) and being significantly less involved in the box. Averages 1.61 fewer touches in the opposition box per game. Guessand has fallen from the top 10% of strikers with the most touches in the opposition box to below average.

It could be a case of a player finding more freedom when facing the play rather than playing with his back to goal. He's been given more of the ball in areas where things don't move as quickly as in the box and where he can take his time to use his excellent dribbling skills. It's clear that the current Guessand is full of confidence and playing with much more freedom under Haise.

Edoardo Bove - ACF Fiorentina - Interior

Bove decided to leave the club of his life, Roma, to establish himself in Italian football. The reality at the moment is that he is one of the leaders of the most surprising side in Serie A, Fiorentina, who have moved to within a point of the top spot. His tally has risen from 48 to 62 points. Just the fourteen-point Leap.

Fiorentina often creates a 4-4-2 shape when defending inside their half and Bove occupies the left wide midfielder position. Even if he's often close to Adli, Fiore's conductor, Bove always keeps an eye on helping his full-back to create numerical advantage against wingers. Not in this case surely...

...as one of Como's attacker has drop to receive in between the lines. Bove and Adli quickly close him down. The Italian quickly gets in front of him, blocking the passing lane to Nico Paz (79), Como's most threatening player, while managing to take the ball away from him. Bove is averaging 3.15 recoveries per game, the 5th most among all midfielders in Serie A. He's not physically imposing, but he often finds a way to deal with these situations. He's also on an average of 4.45 successful takles per 90'.

If there's an aspect in which he could improve on is dueling. He Si hay un aspecto en el que debe mejorar aún más es precisamente en este, en los duelos. He faces 7.46 defensive duels per game (the 6th highest figure among midfielders in Italy) but his success rate is 71.1%, just about average.

(Get back to the sequence, please)

As soon as he's recovered, he runs to pin his opponent down and then passes to his team-mate, who is behind the Como player. On the ball, he is a player of moments, he does not have a consistent impact on the game. He is not the conductor of the team (25.2 passes per game with a success rate of 84.2%), nor does he the ability to drive the team forward (4.94 progressions via passing and 1.61 via carrying per game, both below the 20th percentile, i.e. more than 80% of Serie A midfielders have better figures in these situations).

Palladino changes Fiorentina shape when the team is transitioning from defense to attack. Sometimes Adli goes out wide to play as a makeshift center-back and of the full-backs pushes forward. Bove is constantly on the move vertically to create countermovements and offer solutions for his teammates. If you look at him during a game, you'll probably find him on the movement.

This is a good sequence to explain the type of footballer Bove is. Given Adli is wide, he takes up a deep, central position to help Fiore's build-up. When Adli gets in between the centrer-backs to create a three-man first line, Bove pushes forward to offer a passing line behind the Como press. With this movement, he creates space for Adli to receive as Nico Paz (79) can't press him or he would leave Bove free behind the first line of press.

He's the player who balances the team and even if he doesn't take too much responsibility on the ball, he's still the 8th midfielder in Serie A with the most xA per game and the 11th with the most build-up xG out of a total of 71 midfielders in Italy.

‍Oihan Sancet - Athletic Club - Interior‍

Sancet and Bove share the same position, but have clearly different roles. They are two different worlds. Sancet's improvement is less obvious, but his change of role is. Our Score shows an improvement of +17 points compared to his 23/24, which he ended with a goal in the Copa del Rey final.

The 24-year-old midfielder has slightly modified his position this year. His participating more in deeper areas while having less touch in the edge of the box. The consequences of this change mean that Sancet is averaging more build-up xG, progressing more by passing the ball (the further back he receives, the more space to pass into and through to make the team progress) and shooting more often (mainly because of his surprise factor thanks to him crashing the box, not just waiting inside). On the other side, he's averaging fewer xA, creating fewer chances and having fewer touches in the opponent's box.

This new version of Sancet receives more progressive passes in the last third and averages more passes completed through the lines. At the same time, even if he's not getting into the box as much as he used to, he's doing it more dangerously. 4 out of every 10 shots find the target. He ended last season with a 26% of shots on target. The quality of his shots has improved from 0.13 to 0.15 xG per shot, and he now needs to generate less to score a goal (1.35 xG to score a goal in 23/24, 0.63 in the current season). The percentage of the total team xT that Sancet takes up this year at Athletic (13%) is higher than it was last year (12%).

And his already on the same amount of non-penalty goals scored. If we considered penalties, he would have already surpassed his last seasons's tally.

Tom Bischof - TSG Hoffenheim - Midfielder

Bischof only played 294 minutes last season, so we cheated in this case. Any excuse is a good excuse to talk about a player of the German's potential. Moreover, his Score is the highest of the six players on the list (70) and the improvement from one year to the next is considerable (+19). He's made The Leap!

Bischof is an interior, what in England would be called an 8. He always plays in front of Stach (the defensive midfielder, often a makeshit middle center-back in a 3-man-defence when building up) and behind another, more attacking interior.

In the picture you can see how Hoffenheim create a midfield line of 4 with midfielders central and full-back providing width, with Bischof positioned parallel to Stach.

There are only three metrics in which Bischof 23/24 improves on Bischof 24/25: xA (0.15 vs 0.19), ball progression by carriying (2.01 vs 3.06) and pass success rate (82.6% vs 84%). Although the German looks like a good passer, which he undoubtedly is, he's primarily a hard-working player: he's in the 99th percentile, or in the 1% of midfielders in the big five leagues, for recoveries and defensive duels, and in the 98th percentile, or the top 2% of midfielders, for most successful tackles per game. Like Bove, he could improve on his tackling percentage - he gets dribbled past in 36% of his tackles attempted. However, he is still above average in that regard.

He's a good passer,  keeps the game ticking and doesn't make the mistake of taking too many touches. In the Bundesliga, the quicker you can pass, the better.

Here's the sequence: he receives the ball facing up the play and makes a quick, curved pass to the full-back (22). The full-back adjusts his control to allow for a possible forward pass. Bischof, cleverly, feints with moving to receive a forward pass but retreats so he can create space to receive the ball alone. The Leipzig players are either ball-watching or focusing on Kramaric in-behind movement.

Bischof is left unchallenged after faking his movement and raises his head. Klostermann (Leipzig right-back) has followed Kramaric's movement and a door has opened in between Leipzig's centre-back and right-back.

Bischof recognises the open door, lifts his head and executes, leaving Hoffenheim on the edge of goal. The German midfielder averages 0.88 chances created per game, well above average, as does his xA per game.  

José Ángel Carmona - Sevilla FC - Lateral derecho‍

Carmona's improvement is mainly defensive. But it can also be explained by the fact that not only did he play in a higher position at Getafe, but he position happened to be wider. His tackles, like the rest of his actions, were on the wing. At Sevilla, 18% of his touches have been taking in the half-space and 13% in the middle, between the centre and the wing, which suggests that the Spaniard is often used as a third centre-back or as a deep full-back.

His defensive numbers have grown. His average number of successful tackles (3.04 vs 1.64) and his success rate in those situations (77.8% vs 64.6%) stand out. He is the 3rd full-back in LaLiga with the highest success rate in this type of situation.

In addition, under García-Pimienta he has progressed a lot with the ball. With the exception of not having much of the ball at Getafe, he has gone from averaging 4.44 ball progressions to averaging 12.6. Carmona completes 40.6% of his passes into the box, moreover.