By Niloufar Momeni
For the second year in a row, we follow every Asian football player in the Europe.
From Japan, South Korea and North Korea and China, all the way to Iran, Jordan, and Uzbekistan, Asian players have moved to Europe to advance their football career at football hubs of Europe. Out of these Asian players, many play in second division leagues of Europe, or European leagues such as Poland, Greece, and Austria, which are not considered the elite European leagues.
At Football Tribe Asia, we focused on performances of 70 Asian players who currently play in top European leagues of England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands, Russia and Portugal as per UEFA Coefficient rankings of top leagues.
The criteria are to select players who play in the top division of leagues above.
Tracking all 70 players, in the last month of the football season, May, here are top 5 Asian players in elite football leagues based on performance and ratings. Players’ ranking includes considerations such as the number of goals scored, assists, their Pass Accuracy Ratio % and their ratings*.
5. Alireza Jahanbakhsh: The 23-year old Iranian attacking midfielder is plying his trade at the Dutch league side AZ Alkmaar. Alireza has been consistently among top 5 Asian players in the last few months.
In May, he netted 3 goals in 3 games. With passing ratio of 68.8%, his rating stood at 7.36 out of 10 in May. At the end of the season, AZ Alkmaar managed to secure Europa League spot in next year’s competition.