Just when the European football season was really starting to get into the swing of things, here comes an international break to ruin everyone’s fun.
Go figure.
The international break does at least give us time to digest what was an utterly bonkers gameweek three of the European football season.
From 7-0 wins, last-minute winners, and Kylian Mbappe finally netting in La Liga, it was quite the weekend of football.
With the dust now settled, here’s our list of the best-performing footballers during gameweek three of the European footballing season – ranked, of course.
Thanks to a mix of inner-club turmoil, transfer window-induced anxiety and a hefty 3-0 defeat to Hellas Verona, the clash with Parma on August 31 felt like an early make-or-break moment for Antonio Conte’s Napoli.
And it felt even more like one when they shockingly went 1-0 down thanks to an Ange-Yoan Bonny penalty.
In the end, Napoli were able to come through and earn the win thanks to a 92nd-minute equaliser from Romelu Lukaku and a 96th-minute winner from Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa, who had a brilliant all-round game, winning nine duels as well as scoring that huge goal.
We don’t usually dig deeper than the top five leagues in this series, but thanks to his Old Firm exploits, we would’ve been remiss not to give a nod to Daizen Maeda.
The Japan international was in fantastic form against Celtic’s arch rivals this past Sunday, scoring the opener at Parkhead before assisting another in the eventual 3-0 win. Nice one.
Thanks to his exploits at Euro 2024, Lamine Yamal is already a genuine footballing superstar at just 17 years old.
On the club football front, he hasn’t been doing too badly either.
The youngster was once again in mesmeric form this past weekend in a 7-0 win for Barcelona over Real Valladolid, bagging two goal contributions.
3. Lois Openda
After 35 games, Bayer Leverkusen‘s unbeaten Bundesliga record came to an end at the weekend thanks to the brilliance of RB Leipzig‘s Lois Openda.
The forward almost single-handedly secured a famous 3-2 comeback win for Leipzig over the reigning champions, scoring a sublime brace in the second half at the Bay Arena.
Check out the highlights from the game if you haven’t already, it was a bloody barnstormer.
2. Kylian Mbappe
It took a bit longer than expected, but Kylian Mbappe showed what he was all about in his fourth La Liga game on Sunday.
After firing blanks against Mallorca, Real Valladolid and Las Palmas, Mbappe bagged two goals against Real Betis at the Santiago Bernabeu, heading into the international break without the pressure of a long-awaited La Liga goal looming large.
Now that he’s up and running, expect the French superstar to start scoring goals for fun in a Madrid shirt.
Speaking of scoring goals for fun, here’s Raphinha.
The Brazilian was utterly deadly in front of goal against Real Valladolid, converting a combined xG and xA of 2.71 into three goals and an assist in the 7-0 win.
Maybe Barca didn’t need Nico Williams after all…?
