🎥 Manuel Akanji may be the brainiest footballer on the planet | OneFootball

In the modern era, some footballers have unfairly gained a bad rep for not being the sharpest tools in the shed.

However, one professional may have just proved that players can be just as quick with their brains as with their feet.

For should you ever require someone to defend a goal or work out complex sums at lightning speed, Manuel Akanji is your man.

When it comes to mental arithmetic, he is the absolute boss.

Appearing on television recently, 23-year-old Akanji was tasked with multiplying two numbers between 11 and 99. If that wasn’t tough enough, he was up against the calculator.

And do you know what? He beat it!

First tasked with working out 24 by 75, most of us would be all fingers and thumbs but not Akanji.

“1800!” he responded before the presenter had even touched the calculator. “That was easy,” he smirked. “25s are easy”.

Confidence sky high after nailing the first challenge, he was hit with 33 times 97. With the cogs clearly at work in his head as he crunched the numbers, seconds later he answered: “3201!”. Correct.

The Switzerland international admitted he had always been interested in numbers and, taking part in competitions arranged by his teacher, he won “pretty much everytime”.

More bizarrely, he revealed he also did calculations with licence plates and so some calculations are already lodged in his head.

An expert mathematician, Akanji will be fully aware Dortmund are currently seven points ahead of Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich after beating the Bavarians 3-2 on Saturday.

Next up after the international break, it’s Mainz away.