Team of the Season 2023/24: Generational talents, late bloomers & superstars of the game
As in our Teams of the Week, we have used Flashscore's internal player rating system to select the best player in each position from around the leagues.
We have chosen the players with the highest average ratings from domestic league performances alone, having played in a minimum of 20 matches and appeared for at least 1000 minutes.
Given so many incredible players narrowly missed out, we have thrown in some honourable mentions to boot.
Goalkeeper
Gianluigi Donnarumma (Paris St-Germain) 7.2 (average domestic league rating)
Gianluigi Donnarumma would probably not be most people's subjective choice for the Goalkeeper of the Season but the Italian scored the highest average league rating of any keeper around during PSG's title-winning campaign.
He might have only made 25 appearances but Donnarumma was mightily impressive across those, conceding just 20 goals and keeping 11 clean sheets.
Honourable mention (HM): Fernando Muslera (Galatasaray) 7.0
It's nice to get a player in from the Turkish Super Lig champions Galatasaray after they won the league with a record total of 102 points.
37-year-old Fernando Muslera was a rock for them between the sticks in his 13th season at the club.
Defence
Joshua Kimmich (Bayern Munich) 7.4
The question for so long with Joshua Kimmich has been: What is his best position? Is he a central midfielder or a full-back? This season in the Bundesliga, he played both roles and seemed to settle in at the latter as the campaign wore on.
In 28 league appearances, he contributed six assists, made 167 tackles and covered almost 300 kilometres of ground. Kimmich also made our UEFA Champions League Team of the Season.
Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool) 7.2
Virgil van Dijk entered the season with many doubting whether he'd ever get back to his best after he endured a poor 2022/23 campaign by his standards as he struggled to bounce back from his ACL injury. A year on and he's made those doubters eat their words.
The Liverpool captain was a rock at the back all season long and played as big a part in anyone in the side challenging for the Premier League title and winning the Carabao Cup in Jurgen Klopp's final season.
David Hancko (Feyenoord) 7.4
One player that you can expect to hear plenty about in the upcoming transfer window is Feyenoord's David Hancko, who has firmly established himself as the best centre-back in the Netherlands.
The Slovak dominated most strikers he came up against and was excellent on the ball too. World-class left-footed centre-backs are fairly hard to come by, but he very much looks like one of them.
Maximilian MittelstadtPerhaps one of the most surprising names in our side, Maximillian Mittelstadt has proven to be something of a late bloomer, emerging as one of the best full-backs in Germany at the age of 27.
He was hugely reliable at the back and dangerous going forward in Stuttgart's impressive Bundesliga campaign and could well be rewarded with a starting spot in the Germany team at Euro 2024.
HM: Andrew Robertson (Liverpool) 7.5
Only just missing out on selection at left-back was Liverpool's Andrew Robertson who continues to operate at the highest level.
He missed plenty of matches this season through injury but still managed three goals and an assist in the Premier League.
Midfield
Joey VeermanWe're not giving out a Player of the Season award but if we did, PSV's Joey Veerman would get it, with the Dutchman being the highest-rated player across all leagues.
He ran the show for the Eredivise champions throughout the campaign, getting 16 assists and making an average of 4.6 key passes per game. So good was he that it would be a huge surprise if he didn't leave Eindhoven for bigger things in the summer.
Hakan Calhanoglu (Inter Milan) 7.7
Many players impressed for Inter Milan during their charge to the Serie A title but none more so than Turkish midfielder Hakan Calhanoglu, Italy's Player of the Season in the eyes of many.
He scored 13 times but that only tells half the story, with the 30-year-old being the creative heartbeat of the side throughout the campaign and playing a big part defensively, too.
HM: Rodri (Manchester City) 7.6
Rodri missed out on our starting XI by the skin of his teeth but that takes nothing away from the excellent campaign he enjoyed at Manchester City.
He got eight goals and nine assists from holding midfield and the Premier League champions didn't lose a single league game in which he played - they haven't done so since February of 2023.
Attack
Phil Foden (Manchester City) 7.7
The Premier League's Player of the Season, Phil Foden found another level this season for Manchester City. Filling in as the creative fulcrum of the side when Kevin De Bruyne was injured, Foden's season will be remembered as his transition from sparkling talent to dominant force.
In the Premier League, Foden contributed 19 goals and eight assists in City's fourth consecutive title-winning campaign. The highest-rated player in one of the best sides in the world, that says it all.
Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid) 7.9
Arguably the breakout talent in global football this season, Jude Bellingham's debut season in LaLiga with Real Madrid was nothing short of incredible.
Signed from Dortmund in the summer for over 100 million euros, there was some pressure on the 20-year-old to perform but he didn't seem to be phased at all. Playing in a freer, more advanced role than he had in Germany, Bellingham scored 19 goals for the Spanish champions as they won the league.
How could we not have a player from Bayer Leverkusen? The first-time Bundesliga champions went a whole league season without losing a match, picked up the cup and made the Europa League final. Quite simply, it was a season for the ages.
Key to their incredible success was Spaniard Alejandro Grimaldo, who was signed as a free agent in the summer. He notched 13 assists and 10 goals in the Bundesliga, playing a combination of positions from left wing-back to further forward.
Viktor Gyokeres (Sporting) 7.8
Lautaro Martinez, Harry Kane, Erling Haaland - there are so many impressive number nines in world football right now but the man who pipped them all with the highest average league rating was Sporting's Swedish sensation Viktor Gyokeres.
Gyokeres scored 29 league goals and notched 10 assists in 33 matches as Sporting stormed to the Portuguese league title under the leadership of Ruben Amorim. Having been signed last summer from second-tier English side Coventry, few players have launched themselves into the elite category this season quite like Gyokeres. Surely, a massive transfer awaits this deadly marksman.
HM: Luuk de Jong (PSV) 7.8
PSV captain Luuk de Jong was as unlucky as anyone to miss out on our starting XI after enjoying the best season of his career at the ripe old age of 33.
In the league alone, the striker got a whopping 29 goals and 15 assists to lead his team to the title - that's more goal contributions than anyone else in Europe except Harry Kane.
Manager
Xabi Alonso (Bayer Leverkusen)
Who else? With Xabi Alonso leading Bayer Leverkusen to their first-ever Bundesliga title, a domestic cup triumph and the Europa League final, with that final being the only match they lost all season, he is unquestionably our Manager of the Season.
Achieving an unbeaten domestic double would be an incredible achievement for the most seasoned of managers, so for him to do in his first full season as a coach in senior football is nothing short of remarkable.