Mbappe and Havertz feature in best U21 XI from Europe’s top five leagues
Here we run through the best rated XI from the month of April in Europe’s top five leagues of those aged 21 and under, with additional information about their Football INDEX share prices. In order to qualify for the XI players must have been 21 at the start of the month and made at least three league appearances in April.
Goalkeeper: Bartlomiej Dragowski (Empoli) - 6.89 rating
Football INDEX share price - £0.21
Empoli goalkeeper Bartlomiej Dragowski turned in a career-best performance in April, making 17 saves in a 0-0 draw with Atalanta. It is unsurprisingly a record in Europe’s top five leagues this season and in the process the 21-year-old became only the second goalkeeper to earn a perfect WhoScored rating in a Serie A match since we started receiving OPTA data for the 2009/10 campaign.
Left-back: Aaron Martin (Mainz) - 7.44 rating
Football INDEX share price - £0.47
The Mainz left-back makes this best rated XI for the final time after turning 22 at the end of April. Martin registered an assist across four league appearances last month and impressively posted pass success rates in excess of 90% in two of those games. Martin also registered 11 key passes in that time; completed five dribbles and made 12 tackles and interceptions combined.
Centre-back: Gabriel (Lille) - 7.72 rating
Football INDEX share price - N/A
Gabriel featured in three of Lille’s four league matches last month, including a 5-1 win over champions PSG and last weekend’s 5-0 destruction of Nimes. The 21-year-old came off the bench to score his first Lille goal against PSG and helped Lille close the month with successive clean sheets. Gabriel won eight aerial duels across his three appearances, made 10 clearances and nine tackles and interceptions combined.
Centre-back: Merih Demiral (Sassuolo) - 7.53 rating
Football INDEX share price - N/A
Merih Demiral scored his first Sassuolo goals since joining at the start of the year in April and he didn’t finish any of his five league appearances with a WhoScored rating below 7.00. The 21-year-old has played a key part in Sassuolo’s strong second half of the season and the Neroverdi went through April unbeaten (W2, D3). Demiral won 19 aerial duels, made 25 clearances and 14 tackles and interceptions in that time.
Right-back: Aaron Wan-Bissaka (Crystal Palace) - 7.64 rating
Football INDEX share price - £2.04
Like Demiral, Aaron Wan-Bissaka posted a WhoScored rating above 7.00 in each of his five league appearances last month and even finished April with a WhoScored Man of the Match award in a 0-0 draw with Everton last weekend. The 21-year-old completed more dribbles than any other Premier League player in gameweek 36 (seven) and managed 13 in total across the month. Not only that, but Wan-Bissaka completed 35 tackles and interceptions combined and 30 clearances over his five appearances.
Left wing: Marco Richter (Augsburg) - 7.68 rating
Football INDEX share price - £0.48
Marco Richter has played a direct hand in eight league goals this season and five of them came in April. The 21-year-old scored twice in a 3-1 win away to Frankfurt before scoring or assisting half of their goals in a 6-0 home win over Stuttgart in the next match. Richter earned a WhoScored rating of 10.0 for the performance against the latter and has pushed Augsburg to the brink of safety. The Bundesliga side are now seven points clear of the relegation play-off spot with three games left.
Central midfield: Ismael Bennacer (Empoli) - 7.48
Football INDEX share price - £0.69
Ismael Bennacer is the second Empoli player to feature in our best rated U21 XI for April from Europe’s top five leagues. Empoli are on the brink of relegation but they have at least shown fight to try and battle their way out of the bottom three. Ismael Bennacer is one of those to have played well for Empoli in April, registering two assists in a shock 2-1 win over Napoli at the start of the month. The 21-year-old’s recorded just one WhoScored rating below 7.00 across his five league appearances last month, which is all the more impressive when you consider Empoli only won once in that time.
Central midfield: Jeff Reine-Adelaide (Angers) - 7.80
Football INDEX share price - £0.49
Former Arsenal graduate Jeff Reine-Adelaide made a flying start in April, playing a direct hand in four goals in his first two matches. The 21-year-old has only scored or assisted six goals in Ligue 1 all season and recorded four goal involvements in the space of two games in April. Reine-Adelaide only posted one WhoScored rating below 7.00 in his four league appearances last month and his goal contributions earned Angers an extra four points. Not only that, but the young midfielder completed 13 dribbles, registered eight shots and created four goalscoring opportunities across those matches.
Right wing: Kai Havertz (Bayer Leverkusen) - 7.66 rating
Football INDEX share price - £2.91
19-year-old Kai Havertz scored in three of his four league appearances in April, netting four goals in that time, to take his tally for the season in the Bundesliga to 14 - seven more than he managed in his first two campaigns combined. The German teenager will arguably never score a goal more audacious than his chipped effort against Augsburg at the weekend, either. Overall, Havertz had 15 attempts on goal across his four matches, won 10 aerial duels, completed five dribbles and registered as many key passes.
Striker: Jean-Philippe Mateta (Mainz) - 7.84 rating
Football INDEX share price - £0.64
Mainz striker Jean-Philippe Mateta scored five goals in four league appearances in April, as many as his previous 17 matches combined. Mateta scored a hat-trick in a 5-0 win over Freiburg and bagged a brace in a 3-1 victory at home to Fortuna Duesseldorf. The 21-year-old scored his goals from 15 attempts on goal, while also winning 14 aerial duels; completing seven dribbles and registering four key passes.
Striker: Kylian Mbappe (Paris Saint-Germain) - 7.85 rating
Football INDEX share price - £5.28
Paris Saint-Germain are enduring a miserable time at the moment but they did at least wrap up another league title last month, with Kylian Mbappe netting a hat-trick against former club Monaco to secure the trophy. The 2018 World Cup winner took his league tally for the season to 30 in the process, becoming the first player since Brazilian Ronaldo in 1996/17 to reach the milestone before turning 21.
