Players from Real Madrid, Barcelona, Arsenal, Tottenham, and – surprisingly enough – Everton feature among the most creative players across Europe’s major leagues in the 2024-25 season so far.
Having a player able to consistently create chances for their team-mates can be worth its weight in gold – and some of the superstar names in this top 10 prove this particular stat is a mark of quality.
Here are the 10 players who have registered the most ‘key passes’ (the final pass before a team-mate shoots at goal) in Europe’s five major leagues – La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Premier League and Ligue 1 – in 2024-25. Where two players are tied, we’ve put them in order of the superior per-minute ratio.
Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen may have lost their long-unbeaten domestic record following last season’s historic invincible Bundesliga campaign, but they’ve continued to demonstrate they’re a quality outfit with a hard-fought draw against Bayern Munich and six points from their opening two Champions League games.
Their most prized asset shows no signs of slowing down, either. Twenty-one-year-old Germany international Wirtz has created 18 chances in five Bundesliga outings and scored four goals to boot.
Florentino Perez’s latest Galactico, Kylian Mbappe, has dominated the headlines in the Spanish papers, but the current Ballon d’Or frontrunner continues to deliver for Los Blancos.
There remains a sense that Carlo Ancelotti is still working out exactly how to get things clicking between Vinicius Junior and Mbappe, but you can file that as a nice problem to have. Even amid the ‘dysfunction’, the duo have a combined eight goals and five assists so far in La Liga this season.
Vini is proving himself particularly productive in the final third, having created 20 chances for his star-studded array of team-mates.
Marco Silva’s Fulham continue to punch above their weight, deservedly sitting sixth in the Premier League table, with Pereira the latest one-time Manchester United player to thrive away from Old Trafford in the post-Fergie era.
The Brazilian is yet to score or assist in the Premier League this season but he plays a key role in midfield for the Cottagers and is among the first names on Silva’s teamsheet.
“I don’t want to put too much pressure on us but I do think that this is the year [for us to win the league],” Arsenal’s star attacker told reporters earlier this week.
”I think we’ve been close the last two years and we’re getting closer, but this hopefully will be the year.”
Playing as he is right now, Saka has every right to believe. Five of his 20 key passes so far this season have ended up as assists, one in each of their first five outings. He also sent in the ball that led to Wilfred Ndidi’s decisive own goal in the last-gasp win over Leicester City last week.
READ: The top 10 dribblers in Europe’s five major leagues in 2024-25: Yamal, Mbappe, Kudus….
Unbelievably, eight of Kulusevski’s 20 chances created in the Premier League so far this season came in Tottenham’s 3-0 win at Old Trafford. Christian Eriksen is the only player on record to have ever created more chances for Spurs in a league game.
The big win for Ange Postecoglou’s men was emphatic enough to boast all kind of head-spinning records like that.
Not a household name and by no means a glamorous player, Milla’s inclusion ahead of names like Saka and Vinicius Junior is an eyebrow-raiser – given he plays as a defensive midfielder for Jose Bordalas’ robust Getafe side. Think Spain’s answer to Sam Allardyce and you’d be somewhere close.
But while this list is otherwise full of tricky wingers and technical playmaker wizards, it makes a nice change of pace to see an otherwise unheralded midfielder who plays deeper. Atletico Madrid have been linked of late and you could see why Diego Simeone would be a fan.
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TRY A QUIZ: Can you name every player with 50+ Premier League assists?
Everton kicked off 2024-25 in nightmarish fashion, squandering leads in farcical fashion and taking until their sixth outing to get their first win.
But amid all the chaos, McNeil is quietly having himself an excellent season. Once again Sean Dyche is getting the best out of the winger, who has notched three goals and two assists this season. He was pivotal in the 2-1 comeback victory over Crystal Palace, having notched both goals.
Marcelino’s Villarreal have made a flying start to the 2024-25 campaign, with ex-Newcastle man Ayoze Perez – with six goals – and left winger Alex Baena particularly decent.
Baena is tied with the likes of Saka and Lamine Yamal as the top assister across Europe’s major leagues with five so far. It’s no wonder that Barcelona, Arsenal and Newcastle are reportedly chasing the 23-year-old Spain international’s signature.
The Austrian averages a key pass every 17 minutes in the Bundesliga so far in 2024-25, which is comfortably the most prolific rate of any player that features in this top 10.
Stoger, 31, actually topped this chart last season, which was some going given he was turning out for relative minnows Bochum. That output earned him a move to Borussia Monchengladbach in the summer and he hasn’t let up despite the change in environment.
One of the most underrated players in all of European football right now?
After moving from Leeds United in the summer of 2022, Brazil international Raphinha was by no means bad in his first couple of years at Barcelona but nor was he a revelation.
But in the early weeks of the 2024-25 campaign, he’s producing arguably the very best football of his career for Hansi Flick’s newly-reinvigorated Barca.
There had been whisperings of a move away in the summer but he’s immediately made himself an indispensable leading man of this project.
Raphinha was named La Liga’s Player of the Month for August and hasn’t let up since, having notched five goals and two assists in the league.
He also ranks fourth for all players across Europe’s major leagues, level with Cole Palmer, for ‘expected assists’ – meaning that the quality of the chances he’s creating are particularly high. Top of that metric? Lamine Yamal. Barcelona are stacked with talent.
