With the season nearly over, I thought I'd do a little review of these three leagues. You can form your own if you want to

SURPRISE PACKAGE OF THE SEASON:

France: Nice
Germany: Hoffenheim
Italy: Atalanta

Overall winner: Hoffenheim

Reason to Hoffenheim: After being close to the relegation zone last season, they had decided to appoint Julian Nagelsmann for the new season. Julian Nagelsmann is the youngest manager in all of european football. In his first season at the club, he had led the club to a minimum of 4th, which means that they are in contention for Champions League. He had also done this with limited budget, making a few additions to the team including Leicester flop Kramaric. Key results for the season include:

3 0 win against Leverkusen
1 1 draw against Bayern
2 2 draw against Dortmund
1 0 win against Bayern
5 3 win against Gladbach

MANAGER OF THE SEASON:

France: Favre, Jardim
Germany: Nagelsmann, Hasenhuttl
Italy: Allegri, Gasperini

Overall winner: Jardim

Reason to Jardim: This has been one of the most attacking teams in europe, and one of the most entertaining teams to watch. They've managed to average 3 goals a game, they've produced many youth players like Lemar, Silva, Fabinho, Bakayoko and Mbappe. Jardim has found a way to tactically beat Pep, Tuchel, Emery and many other great managers. Three years ago when they played Juventus and got knocked out they were known for defensive football, and now they are know for attacking football. Quite a change.

GOAL OF THE SEASON:

France: Depay against Toulose
Germany: Gnabry against Gladbach
Italy: Mertens against Torino

Overall winner: Depay against Toulose

Reason to Depay: Honestly, this goal never fails to amaze me. To shoot the ball from the halfway line whilst having turned, and to see the goalkeeper was out of his line and to shoot that quickly, this was the easiest pick out of the three goals. If you haven't seen it, here's the goal. So good.

MISS OF THE SEASON:

Valbuena against Lille: A Lyon player has taken a goal of the season, and ironically a Lyon player takes the miss of the season. Valbuena misses this open goal against Lille. Horrible miss from him.

KEEPER ERROR OF THE SEASON:

Lucas Hradecy against Leipzig: He ran out of his box and held the ball. Afterwards he kicked the ball away. No error has been worse than this season

BEST RED CARD OF THE SEASON REACTION:

Cahuzac against Angers: After being annoyed, he decided to slam the board out of the fourth official's hand. The reaction was quite funny but very inappropriate for a footballer.

YOUNG PLAYER OF THE SEASON

France: Silva, Mbappe
Germany: Dembele, Werner
Italy: Donnaruma, Kessie

Overall winner: Mbappe

Reason to Mbappe: Mbappe has been on the hype road, but it has most certainly been deserved. He started his big plays from February, and he has the highest goals and assists ratio in europe this season! Yes, that's even higher than the likes of Messi, Ronaldo... He has also shown great maturity at Monaco, and he also has the highest goals for an 18 year old in the Champions League. As he keeps playing, his value keeps going up, and no one could predict what he will go for in two years time.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

France: Cavani
Germany: Lewandoswki
Italy: Belotti

Overall winner: Belotti

Reason to Belotti winning: This player is also making a name for himself. Currently top of the goal scoring leaderboards, he has managed to score a wide range of goals including left foot goals, right foot goals, headers. Also, it is harder to score goals at Bayern and PSG than Torino. Had it not been for their troubles at the back, they would most certainly have been competing for Europe. He has also, like Mbappe, shown maturity and does not look like he will stop his form. I for one would certainly like to see him play for Arsenal one day.

Now, what have been your thoughts on

• Surprise package of the season
• Manger of the season
• Goal of the season
• Miss of the season
• Best young player of the season
• Best player of the season

Of course, you don't have to include the players in my nomination lists.

I agree with most of these tbh.

• Surprise package of the season - Hoffenheim
• Manager of the season - Jardim without any doubts
• Goal of the season - Depay
• Miss of the season - can't remember any worse than Valbuena's
• Best young player of the season - between Dembele and Mbappe
• Best player of the season - Thiago Alcantara

Great Thread!!

Croatian

Some of those amazed me. I limited it to one for each category, but if it was top three Dembele and Donnarumma would certainly have made the list. As for Thiago, I do agree that he has been superb this season, but I've always felt that Lewa has been the leader at Bayern. He's even the main pk taker and scored an amazing free kick against Dortmund. I do see where your coming from, he has been superb.

liomessi10

Thank you mate, I appreciate it.

^I agree with Lewa part but what Thiago has been doing this season is superb. I don't think any midfielder could of even be compared in same sentence with Thiago.

Croatian

Well, I don't think of any either, considering his notable performance against Arsenal and other games.

Good thread, I agree with the majority of your picks.

I'd pick Thiago over Lewa in Germany, and Mertens over Belotti in Italy, with the overall winner being Thiago.

Great thread and I agree with almost everything you said. So many great revelation and suprise this season in term of player and team success! :D

Phenohyte

Thanks pal, Thiago is quite popular here lol, can see why. He's been amazing. Mertens has been the man too, but I've felt that he lacks something that Belloti has. I certainly hope that he follows Insigne and signs a new deal, I believe that he still has much to offer despite his age.

Emobot7

I know, too many surprises. Some of those overall ones were quite hard to choose, like having to choose Hoffenheim over Atalanta, but looking from two ways Hoffenheim has been a bigger surprise.

GREAT THREAD!!!!

I would love to hear more about Atalanta, I have only watched 1,5 of their games and mostly highlights in which they got trashed 7 -1 by Inter, but lately had a great draw 2 - 2 against Juventus.

Their squad isn't that amazing nor attractive but they seems to have some great results, especially very decent away results.

How's their football, anyone know?

tuan_jinn

I'll try my best. Please do bear with me.

Gian Piero Gasperini: The manager of the team that are pushing for a europa league. He took Genoa to 5th a few years back, and he was making a big name for himself. However, after being sacked a few years later he took the role of Inter. Unfortunately for him he got sacked after losing 4 games and drawing 1. This kinda ruined his reputation a bit, and the two sackings of Palermo added to it. After a poor start to Atalanta ( losing four out of five opening matches), he has almost led his team to 5th.

The team: The team was also known for their recruitment for young players. Eventually, AC Milan took this model and made Atalanta's sporting director their own, producing talent like Donnarumma, Locatelli.... Atalanta as a team are solid. Let's say that them losing to Inter was a one off. They've been producing the youth of Italy, many players like Caldara (bought by Juve), Spinazzola ( from Juve), Conti, Kessie, Petagna. They look to be getting into European football for the first time since 1991! I don't know about you but to me their style and squad is very attractive.

I hope I've helped.

Excellent stuffs mate.

How about playing style?

@tuan, I try to watch them time to time even if they are playing worse teams. Started because matches are on TV and don't have to watch laggy streams and bad commentators. Most important thing is that they have squad, not few good players. You can't name weak link in their squad. And it's obvious they will continue to be good talent factory. From these players they have or had (thinking about Gagliardini) there's good chance 50% of them will be world-class. Their average age changed from like 27 or 28 (not sure, read fact quite a while ago) to 23,54 in one year.

About playstyle, I'm not really a tactical guy :p but I noticed Caldara is usually only defender who pushes forward (he has really good ball control and passing, also not afraid of doing risky stuff). They also use man-marking instead of zonal-marking. Gomez and Petagna (when they play together) are pushing highest and Kurtic is right behind them trying to stop actions really early. When they press so high most of teams decide to go for long balls (which won't work because three atb - Masiello, Caldara and Toloi - are strong af).

When they attack they often work on left or right side (Spinazzola and Conti have decent speed and crossing) and they usually try to get ball to Gomez or Petagna (Petagna doesn't have excellent ball control so he is mostly on crosses and easier chances, while Gomez is all at one - creator, dribbler and finisher). Kessie usually isn't near defence in actions but he waits for getting the ball in center of the field. Since he's b2b he can quickly get from defensive areas to the opponent's box.

Most of these stuff I learned from tactical analysis and then closely watching games. Really works. Atalanta is by far one of most impressive teams to me this year.

Wow, great. Thanks mate.

Doing man marking is sometimes very risky, and high pressing, but if they find a system that works, it works. Masiello is fast and strong, while Caldara is quite fast and tall (1.90) against long high ball shouldn't be any problem indeed.

I'm also a fan of a club with home grown talent!!!

Thanks guys

Seems I was beaten, but yeah, what Croatian said. +1.

Nice thread.
I agree about Hoffenheim being the surprise team and Jardim being the manager of the season. But I need more research to have an exact opinion about the other questions.