Issue number 185 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the top 100 list of the best performing big-5 league players in the area of dribbling. Middlesbrough’s Adama Traoré outranks Eden Hazard (Chelsea) and Allan St-Maximin (Bastia). Neymar, Lionel Messi and Alexis Sánchez also are in the top 10 positions of the rankings.

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The dribbling index is calculated by dividing the number of dribbles attempted by the percentage of successful ones. This allows us taking into account dribbling skills from both a quantitative and a qualitative perspective. In quantitative terms, the big-5 league player who attempted the most dribbles so far is Barcelona’s Neymar (269), ahead of Wilfried Zaha (Crystal Palace) and Felipe Anderson (Lazio).

The best ratio of successful dribbles among players in the top 100 list was recorded for OGC Nice’s midfielder Wylan Cyprien (87%). At second position is another French Ligue 1 player: Marco Verratti (Paris St-Germain). The best ratio for players who attempted more than 100 dribbles was observed for Eden Hazard: 75%.

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