One of my favorite collections of stats -- what, you don't have favorite collections of stats? -- comes from Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
My colleague Bill Barnwell called Kelce "one of the most valuable players of his generation." The tight-end position requires players big enough to block linebackers and defensive linemen in the run game but also agile enough to get open in the passing game. Unsurprisingly, there are not many human beings that can block 6-foot-4, 285-pound pash-rushers and run past 6-foot, 200-pound defensive backs.
There are guys who can do one of those things; they become wide receivers or offensive linemen. And most of the guys who can do both? They block worse than the average lineman and they run routes and catch worse than the average receiver; their value comes mostly in the ability to do both, somewhat competently. Not Kelce, though. He blocks well enough that the opposition doesn't just assume the Chiefs are passing when he's on the field, and he's as much of a receiving threat as anyone in the NFL.
So, the stats: Kelce has played 18 playoff games -- one more than a standard regular season. And those games are coming against the best teams in the NFL. He's caught 133 passes for 1,548 yards and 16 touchdowns. Per game, that's 7.4 catches, 86 yards, and 0.9 touchdowns -- numbers that would've ranked, respectively, third, eighth, and first in the NFL this past regular season.
Is there a soccer equivalent of Kelce's dominance against elite opposition? In one sense, not really -- or, at least, it doesn't matter. The way the domestic season works, goals against Real Valladolid are just as valuable against goals against Real Madrid. But we do have one strand of competition that theoretically includes only the best teams in the world: the Champions League knockout rounds. (No offense to Helsingborgs, Ferecvaros and FC Sheriff, but the group stages do not include only the best teams in the world.)
Ahead of the Champions League quarterfinals, then, let's try to identify the Kelces of European soccer.
Games played
You can't really tease apart these two things: Kelce's amazing production and the sheer volume of playoff games he's appeared in -- more than an entire extra season of games over his career. The number of games allows him to rack up the stats, but Kelce's excellence in those games has helped the Chiefs win and advance in the playoffs every year, this allowing him to play more games, and on and on. Kansas City has made at least the conference finals in each of the past five seasons and the Super Bowl in four.
Stats Perform has Champions League data going back to 2010, and there are 23 players who have played at least a full extra season of knockout round matches since then. The main thing they all have in common: an extensive amount of time spent playing for Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, or Barcelona.
The man at the top of the list, meanwhile, spent extensive time playing for Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. Toni Kroos has appeared in 62 knockout games, winning the Champions League with Bayern in 2012 and Madrid in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2022. Cristiano Ronaldo is the only other player to appear in at least 60 knockout-round matches since 2010.
The other players still going in this year's competition who have played at least 38 knockout-round games since 2010:
-59: Karim Benzema
-57: Thomas Muller, Luka Modric
-55: Manuel Neuer
-52: David Alaba
-42: Dani Carvajal
Among those, Alaba, at "only" 30 years old, has the longest runway to add to his total. Like Kroos, he has figured out the key to Champions League longevity and ever-presence: play for Bayern Munich and then move to Real Madrid.
The most matches played by an under-30 player are the 33 games for AS Monaco and Manchester City from 28-year-old Bernardo Silva. Among under-25 players, Trent Alexander-Arnold leads the way with 26 matches for Liverpool. Silva could hit the 38-game mark by the end of the season. As for TAA, who knows?
Unsurprisingly, Ronaldo leads the way -- by a wide margin. From 2010 on, he scored 49 non-penalty goals; no one else has scored more than 30. (From here on out, we'll be referring to non-penalty goals only, unless otherwise noted.) However, that 30 comes from Ronaldo's former teammate and a player who is still in the competition right now, Real Madrid's Benzema. These are all 30:
Among other players still in the competition, Thomas Muller ranks second after Benzema with 24, while his new Bayern teammate, Sadio Mane, has 15 knockout goals, making him the only other player left in the competition with at least 10.
If we try to widen out a little bit, another name stands way above everyone else. Among all the players with at least 500 minutes in Champions League knockout games since 2010, Erling Haaland is the only one with more than 0.9 non-penalty goals per 90 minutes. And he's all the way up at 1.17. In fact, only 12 players have scored more knockout-round non-penalty goals since 2010 than Haaland's nine. He's, uh, 22 years old and has played just eight knockout-round games!
For more context: Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the self-proclaimed unstoppable, unaging, unmatched Zlatan of all Zlatans, has scored five knockout round goals since 2010.
Assists
The Expected Assist (xA) data isn't as extensive here, so despite my preference to look at the quality of the chances the players are creating, we'll have to go with the guys who have had the most passes kicked or headed into the goal by their teammates.
Since 2010, there's been a three-way tie in assists between players who all -- you guessed it -- spent time playing for Madrid: Ronaldo, Modric, and Angel Di Maria. The Croatia midfielder is the only one still in the competition with 12 career knockout-round assists:
To continue on with recurring themes: The only other remaining player this season with at least 10 assists is Muller. Since 2010, only five players have scored at least 20 knockout goals and created at least 10 more:
- Ronaldo: 49 goals, 12 assists
- Lionel Messi: 29 goals, 10 assists
- Muller: 24 goals, 11 assists
- Robert Lewandowski: 23 goals, 10 assists
Throw in Benzema (30 goals, 7 assists), and those five are the only ones with at least 30 goal contributions since 2010. Neymar (21) is the only other player to even break 20.
Among players still in the tournament, three others have contributed to at least 15 goals: Mane (15 goals, 1 assist), Kevin De Bruyne (9 goals, 7 assists), and Bernardo Silva (7 goals, 8 assists). After Kylian Mbappe (14 goals, 3 assists), Silva has the most goal contributions of any player under 30. Still no trophy, but he's quietly put together a fantastic Champions League career.
Although his form has finally started to dip over the past two seasons, Atletico Madrid's Jan Oblak still grades out as the best shot-stopper in the Champions League knockout rounds over the past decade. Stats Perform has post-shot Expected Goals (xG) data (which includes information on where the shot ended up on the goal frame) in the Champions League going back to the 2013-14 season. Since then, Oblak has faced shots worth 34.99 post-shot xG, and he's conceded just 23. Put another way, he's conceded 11.99 fewer goals than we'd expect from an average goalkeeper facing the same shots:
If we look at all the keepers who have saved at least four goals above average, it essentially doubles as a list of the best keepers in the world over the past 10 years -- save for two exceptions:
- Thibaut Courtois: 9.49 goals saved
- Manuel Neuer: 9.40
- Joe Hart: 9.14
- Keylor Navas: 7.63
- Andre Onana: 6.14
- Alisson: 5.14
- Gianluigi Buffon: 4.15
Hart is currently playing for Celtic and hasn't been near the top of the game for a long time, and then there's Onana, who is only 27 and has only played nine knockout-round matches:
Onana has been standing on his head for 810 straight minutes, and much like in playoff hockey, a hot goalie can have an outsize effect on a team's results in knockout soccer. (See: Courtois, last season.) With a comparatively easy draw, might Onana's reflexes be enough to power Inter Milan into the final?
Everything else
As is also the case outside of the Champions League, Messi nearly laps the field when it comes to dribbling past players and driving the ball into the penalty area. Since 2010, Messi has dribbled past 279 opponents in the knockout rounds, while Neymar is second, all the way down at 147. Same story with passes into the box: Messi is first with 224; Arjen Robben is second with 143.
Among players still in the tournament, Modric is the leading dribbler, with 83 take-ons completed. His midfield partner, Kroos, is the leading passer-into-the-penalty-area, with 118 -- just slightly ahead of Muller's 116. While there aren't many other contemporary dribblers near the top of the leaderboard, Alexander-Arnold is one of only eight players with at least 100 passes completed into the box since 2010; he's 24 and none of the other seven are younger than 33.
More broadly, when we're talking about everything else -- the things that aren't assists, shots, and saves -- we're talking about gaining control of the ball and then moving the ball up the field. And when you combine all of that together, Kroos stands alone.
Since 2010, the German midfielder has recovered possession 372 times; 25 more than Modric in second. (When you look at recoveries per 90 minutes, Chelsea's N'Golo Kante, unsurprisingly, leads the way with 9.1) Largely aided by his free-kick responsibilities, Kroos has started 122 uninterrupted possessions that ultimately led to a shot; Modric is second with 64. Kroos has taken more touches than any player (5,238) since 2010 and, despite that wildly high volume of possession involvement, he has completed 92.6% of his passes -- fifth highest among any player with at least 900 knockout minutes since 2010.
It's not just sideways passing, either. He has played 758 progressive passes (passes that either move the ball into the box or move it 10 yards closer to the opposition goal, excluding the first 40% of the field), and Modric, once again, is second with 473. Simplified down to just passes into the attacking third and Kroos is way ahead again: 637, with Modric in second on 435.
He isn't really slowing down in possession, either. Across all games in the Champions League this season, Kroos still leads all players in progressive passes and passes completed into the attacking third. And he's still completing his passes at a 91% clip. It's easy to understand why Kroos' teams win so often; he's on the ball all the time, he never loses it, and he pushes it up the field. He won't kill a potentially dangerous move by making a safe pass, he won't turn the ball over in his own third, and he won't force a long ball when the tempo of the game needs to slow down. In a strange way, he's kind of like an NBA star -- you want as many possessions as possible to run through him because he's gonna make the right decision, more often than anyone else.
As The Athletic's John Muller pointed out early this week, according to FBref's on-off data, Real Madrid have never been better in a single season when Kroos has been off the field. That's only concerning LaLiga play, while Kroos has arguably been even better in the Champions League -- against the best teams in the world. Must be something in the TK initials, huh?