Real Madrid star the only La Liga player among top 20 midfielders who resist pressure the best | OneFootball

Over the years, Real Madrid have had some of the very best players in the world playing in their team. This is also the case for the current Merengue team, which has up to six of its players contending for the upcoming Ballon d’Or.

All the areas of the Real Madrid team have well-established stars playing for them, but the midfield consists of a particularly alluring collection of talents, with veterans like Luka Modric, playing along with players in their prime like Federico Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni.

There are also some highly rated young talents like Eduardo Camavinga, Jude Bellingham, and Arda Guler playing at a very good level.

In this constellation of stars, one player stands out in one particular aspect. The CIES Football Observatory has collected data on midfielders who are the best at retaining the ball in high-pressure situations from the top 18 leagues across Europe and the top league in Brazil and Mexico.

There is only one midfielder from La Liga in this ranking of top 20 players in this aspect, Real Madrid’s Aurelien Tchouameni, who stands fourth in the ranking with a ball retention rate of 92% when under pressure.

The ranking is topped by the Bayern Munich midfielder Joshua Kimmich, who recorded a 95.8% ball retention rate when under pressure, while the Turin midfielder Samuel Ricci stood second with 92.5%, and Rafael Carioca of the Mexican side Tigres stood third with a 92.2% rating.

While the Vikings fans would have wanted to see more of their midfielders appear in this list, they would still be glad to see their midfielder be the only one player for La Liga appearing in this list. The competitiveness of this list can be understood by the fact that no player from the Premier League, which is widely considered to be the best league in the world, appeared in it.