European Assists King 2024/25: Lamine Yamal surges into share of first place

Carlo Garganese

• Updated: 2 Sept 2024 09:22 BST
• 9 min read

An intriguing battle to record the most assists in Europe is set to get under way for the 2024/25 football season.

There was a surprise winner of the European Assists King award last year, with Villarreal star Alex Baena coming out on top narrowly ahead of Ollie Watkins and Alejandro Grimaldo.

Baena triumphed for the first time after reaching 14 La Liga assists, helped by a surge late in the season. That was one of the lowest winning totals in recent history, but it was still an impressive accomplishment after an extremely competitive race saw 23 players hit double figures for goals created across Europe’s top five leagues.

READ MORE: Chelsea 2024/25 Top Scorers

While big names like Kevin De Bruyne, Thomas Muller, Antoine Griezmann and Lionel Messi have regularly impressed in this award before, assists are a more variable statistic than goals, so there was always the chance that a surprise contender could emerge.

With Messi no longer in the running as he plays in MLS, Baena, who won a gold medal at the Olympics with Spain, is among the players who enter this season as one of the players to beat along with De Bruyne, who will hope to have a campaign where he stays more clear of injuries for Manchester City.

Watkins and Grimaldo will also aim to be named the most creative player in Europe after coming so close a season ago.

Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah and Manchester United midfielder Bruno Fernandes also look set to be leading figures in the race to record the most assists in Europe’s top five leagues.

READ MORE: Manchester United 2024/25 Top Scorers

Grimaldo’s Bayer Leverkusen team-mate Florian Wirtz was a contender from last season who will hope to impress once more, while Cole Palmer and Xavi Simons will also stake their claims again. Savinho will also hope to impress, as he did a year ago, having now moved to Man City.

The 2024/25 European Assist King award will be won by the player who provides the most assists in the top five European leagues – the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1.

There are no coefficients or scales used for these leagues - just ranking the most goals created by each player in the top-five leagues condensed into a single table.

READ MORE: Champions League 2024/25 Top Scorers

We will also track the players who produce the most assists in each of those five divisions individually and this page will be updated with the latest standings throughout the campaign.

Who has the most assists in Europe?

The 2024/25 season has well and truly started in all five of Europe's top five leagues. The Bundesliga was the last to get under way to join Ligue 1, Premier League, La Liga and Serie A, all of which - apart from the Spanish top flight (four - have played three rounds of matches.

The European Assists King standings are therefore well up and running.

There are three players who registered two assists in the first weekend of the campaign and they shared the lead after Matchday 1.

After MD2 there was an outright leader, Joao Neves of PSG, who impressively had two consecutive matches where he registered two assists. It's an impressive start from the former Benfica midfielder, who was a big summer transfer signing for the French champions. Neves' streak came to an end against Lille last time out but he is still in a strong position.

But he was being hotly pursued in the standings by Chelsea star Cole Palmer, whose latest assist against Crystal Palace means he is now joint-top of the standings. He was already in prime position because, in his team's previous match, as well as scoring himself, the England international set up three goals as the Blues thrashed Wolves 6-2 in the Premier League. All of his assists were for Noni Madueke, who netted a hat-trick in the game at Molineux.

Also in the battle of early leaders is Barcelona sensation Lamine Yamal. The Spain winger had already got an assist against Valencia in his side's first game of the season, but then added three more in the space of two Barca matches last week to surge into a share of the lead.

Yamal set up one goal in the 2-1 midweek win at Rayo Vallecano before getting two assists in the emphatic 7-0 triumph over Real Valladolid.

There are a number of other big players from Europe's leading clubs who have also got off the mark for assists in the first three weeks of the season.

Vinicius Junior and Antoine Griezmann are already off the mark in La Liga for Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid respectively.

They had assists in MD1, with Griezmann adding a second goal created for the season as Atletico Madrid beat Girona, also scoring in the match.

In the Premier League, Mohamed Salah and Bukayo Saka already have their first three goals created in the campaign.

Arsenal's Saka has assists in each of the Gunners' opening three league matches, becoming the club's first player since Thierry Henry in 2004 to achieve that feat.

Salah set up two goals, as well as netting himself, in a comfortable 3-0 win for Liverpool over rivals Man Utd.

Most Assists in Europe: Previous Winners

The title for most assists in Europe was won by Villarreal attacking midfielder Alex Baena last season.

Baena had 14 assists, finishing top of the standings just one clear of Ollie Watkins and Alejandro Grimaldo (both 13), who topped the creative charts in the Premier League and Bundesliga respectively.

There were seven players tied for fourth place with 11 assists each, including Cole Palmer and Leroy Sane.

READ MORE: European Golden Shoe 2024/25 Standings

It was a disappointing year for players in Serie A or Ligue 1, as no representative from either division made it into the final standings.

In Italy it was Paulo Dybala (Roma) and Rafael Leao (AC Milan) who finished joint top with nine assists.

In France, there were four players level at the top with a total of just eight goals created. They were Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Ousmane Dembele, Angel Gomes and Romain Del Castillo.

READ MORE: Premier League 2024/25 Top Scorers

In the 2022/23 campaign, the European Assists King award was shared by three players. Lionel Messi (PSG), Kevin De Bruyne (Man City) and Antoine Griezmann (Atletico) all registered 16 assists to share the crown.

Messi's move from Paris Saint-Germain to Inter Miami in 2023 means the Argentina star, who has been one of the best creative players in Europe's top five leagues for more than a decade, is no longer part of this competition.

However, Messi did finish on a high in the European Assists King award with his triumph that year.

READ MORE: Premier League Assists Standings

Of the other divisions, Dortmund star Raphael Guerreiro finished on top of the Bundesliga assists charts with 12 goals created. That meant he finished in a tie with Premier League duo Mohamed Salah and Leandro Trossard for fourth place overall.

Napoli's Khvicha Kvaratskhelia had the most assists in Serie A with 10.

Thomas Müller and Kylian Mbappe shared the European Assists King award in the 2021/22 season with a sensational 18 goals created each, beating Messi (14) into third place.

Salah (13) was again in a tie for fourth position overall that year after registering the most Premier League assists, while Domenico Berardi and Ousmane Dembele (both 13) came out on top in Serie A and La Liga respectively.

READ MORE: Arsenal 2024/25 Top Scorers

Muller was named the European Assists King outright in each of the previous two seasons (2019/20 and 2020/21), as he recorded 40 assists across those campaigns in the Bundesliga.

The Bayern star finished five assists clear of joint runners-up Harry Kane and Filip Kostic in 2020/21, with 19 goals created in total.

Iago Aspas (13) had the most assists in La Liga that season, while Ruslan Malinovskiy and Memphis Depay (both 12) topped the assist charts in Serie A and Ligue 1 respectively.

READ MORE: Real Madrid 2024/25 Top Scorers

Muller’s first crown came when he had 21 assists to only just beat Messi, who had 20 in La Liga 2019/20 for Barcelona. De Bruyne was another to narrowly miss out after he also set up 20 goals and topped the Premier League charts.

The award for most creative player in Europe in 2018/19 went to Eden Hazard. He had 15 assists for Chelsea, meaning he narrowly beat Jadon Sancho (14) and Ryan Fraser (14) to the award.

De Bruyne had the most assists in Europe during 2017/18. He created 16 goals for his Man City team-mates to claim the title. Leroy Sane (15), Dimitri Payet (14) and Luis Alberto (14) all narrowly missed out.

What is an assist?

An assist in football is usually credited to the player who plays the final pass or cross before a goal is scored. A player may receive recognition for creating a goal by being awarded an assist even if the pass or touch they have made to set up the goalscorer is unintentional.

There can be slight differences in how assists are recorded and allocated depending on the criteria of each official competition. For example, if a player’s pass towards a goalscorer takes a deflection on its way to the intended target, an assist is often not credited. A player who wins a penalty that is then scored does not usually get an assist either.

As well as being a recognised official statistic, assists are often important in fantasy football games and betting markets.