Study reveals top 100 dribblers in top 5 leagues

For the uninitiated, the CIES Football Observatory is, as stated on their website, “a research group within the International Centre for Sports Studies, who specialise in the statistical analysis of football”.

In other words, they know their stuff.

Their previous work has included studies into which team are the most valuable in the Premier League.

So, without further ado, the best dribbler in Europe is... Adama Traore.

And if that seems odd, Lionel Messi comes in at seventh with, almost inexplicably, Cristiano Ronaldo not even in the top 100.

However, before you disregard the findings, it is clear that the people of CIES have taken a scientific approach to the study to give each player a dribbling index.

“The dribbling index is calculated by dividing the number of dribbles attempted by the percentage of successful ones. This allows us to take into account dribbling skills from both a quantitative and a qualitative perspective,” they explain in an accompanying blog post.

Check out the full list below.