5 Leverkusen, 3 Bavaria
©TM/IMAGO
After Bayer Leverkusen finished last season in a disappointing sixth place, only one professional from the “Werkself” made it into the team for the 22/23 season in the summer. As the autumn champions of the current championship round, things look completely different, while the best player from last year’s Bayer team, Jeremie Frimpong, is now back in the team for the first half of the season. The TM community voted and no other team appointed nearly as many representatives as from the Rhinelanders. No one else received as many votes as Frimpong.
The Dutchman was already one of the five most voted players after last season. After the last half series he is number one and has accordingly found a place in the top eleven of users again. After the 17th matchday, the Dutchman belongs to a quartet ahead of Leroy Sané and Harry Kane from FC Bayern as well as teammate Florian Wirtz that has been included in well over 1,000 user lineups over the course of the season so far.
Frimpong leads a squad of five Bayer professionals who made it into the team for the first half of the season. The user trainers also provided Xabi Alonso to the team. Midfield star Wirtz, who, alongside teammate Alejandro Grimaldo, made his way into the 20 best assist providers of last year over the last few months and is now one of the 15 most valuable players in the world, has already been nominated for a whopping 13 nominations for a matchday team this season back. In doing so, he trumps Frimpong and Grimaldo, who both took part ten times.
With Wirtz & Grimaldo: Players with the most assists in the 2023 calendar year
Jonathan Tah, who made it into the top eleven as a central defender with the second most votes after Bayern’s Min-jae Kim, was only in the eleven on the match day three times. The fifth in the Bayer league, Granit Coach Alonso has three nominations over the past 17 match days. Victor Boniface, on the other hand, can be described as a hardship case, as he would have earned his place in the user team after 17 goals in 16 games if it weren’t for Bayern’s Kane and Stuttgart’s Serhou Guirassy.
Boniface is actually one of the eleven most selected players in the first half of the season, but his position in the center of the attack is too busy. Guirassy was nominated for a team of the match day six times and was included in a good third of all user lineups submitted over the first half of the season. And Kane (nine nominations) is in third place among the most voted players overall, but alongside Frimpong he also has to rank behind his teammate Sané. The two Munich players are currently the best scorer duo in the top 15 leagues, ahead of Inter Milan’s Lautaro Martínez and Hakan Çalhanoğlu. Sané was part of a matchday eleven ten times.
While Kim is part of the community’s squad alongside Kane and Sané from FC Bayern, Alexander Nübel from VfB Stuttgart made it into the top eleven alongside Guirassy. The latter prevents a Dortmund professional from being part of the best team of the first half of the season. Nübel’s lead over BVB goalkeeper Gregor Kobel is only very small considering the last 17 match days. Instead of a black and yellow one, however, there is one from the “Red Bulls”:
Guirassy to Mbappé: Players with the most goals in the calendar year 2023
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