El-Arabi and Valbuena top charts as best league duo
Olympiacos’ fine season was greatly helped by the contributions of the superb attacking duo of Mathieu Valbuena and Youssef El-Arabi.
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Olympiacos were the undisputed best team of this season’s Greek Super League 1 campaign. One of the biggest reasons for Pedro Martins’ team finding success were two of the club’s transfers last summer. Despite picking up two players who came to the club at advanced stages of their careers, Olympiacos reaped the benefits provided by Mathieu Valbuena (35 years old) and Youssef El-Arabi (33 years old).
The two attacking players not only provided timely leadership and big performances in key matches, but they also had the statistics to back it up. No other Super League duo came close to matching the production of the Erythrolefki pair.
Together, Valbuena and El-Arabi accounted for 23 goals and 17 assists in league play for the Piraeus club during the 2019/20 regular season. In only 19 matches due to an injury, Valbuena recorded eleven assists and chipped in with six goals. El-Arabi led the league with his 17 goals and also provided six assists in his 25 appearances.
Compare those numbers to the league’s second-best duo, PAOK’s Karol Swiderski had just ten goals in 24 matches, and Josip Misic led the team with seven assists from 24 games.
In all competitions, Valbuena and El-Arabi’s numbers become even more impressive with 32 goals and 27 assists in domestic and European matches. That puts the two players as the sixth-highest productive duo in European football for the entire season, just behind the likes of Sancho/Haaland, Di Maria/M’bappe, Muller/Lewandowski, and Messi/Suarez amongst others.
