Jadon Sancho wins the Bundesliga's assist king prize for 2018/19
Jadon Sancho and Joshua Kimmich battled all the way to the end for the title of 2018/19 Bundesliga assist king. Who else was serving up goal for their teammates this season?
bundesliga.com rounds up the 2018/19 campaign's leading assist providers...
Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund)
Appearances: 34 (26 starts)
Assists: 14
Assists per game: 0.41
Jadon Sancho ended the Bundesliga season as the league's top assister. He registered one more assist than Barcelona's Lionel Messi in 2018/19, but one less than Eden Hazard from Chelsea. Remarkably, he started the campaign as a substitute, but a handful of match-winning cameos in the first six games - providing assists off the bench against RB Leipzig, Eintracht Frankfurt, Nuremberg and Bayer Leverkusen - persuaded head coach Lucien Favre to make him a starter and he held down his place in the BVB throughout the season to play in every game for the club.
Joshua Kimmich (Bayern Munich)
Appearances: 34 (34 starts)
Assists: 13
Assists per game: 0.38
The only player to play every single second, minute and hour of Bayern Munich's title-winning campaign, it's still incredible that a defender can register such a huge amount of assists for his team. His crosses from open play and corners were lapped up all year lonh. The 24-year-old chimed in with a brace of assists against VfB Stuttgart on Matchday 19 and has been regularly adding to that tally ever since. He added to his tally with one very special assist on the final day, setting up Franck Ribery to score his final goal for Bayern.
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Julian Brandt (Bayer Leverkusen)
Appearances: 33 (30 starts)
Assists: 11
Assists per game: 0.33
Julian Brandt chimed in with five assists last season and only had three to his name at the halfway point in 2018/19, but the Leverkusen maestro has gone up a gear under Peter Bosz. He set up Lucas Alario in the Matchday 20 win over Bayern, before registering two goals and as many assists a week later against Mainz. He also turned provider against Dortmund, Hannover (a hat-trick of assists!), Hoffenheim and Nuremberg to claim 11 in the end.
Thorgan Hazard (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
Appearances: 33 (33 starts)
Assists: 10
Assists per game: 0.30
Thorgan Hazard hadn't found the net at all in 2019 until Matchday 33, when he took his goal tally to 10 for the campaign in Gladbach's thumping 4-0 win over Nuremberg. He also notched his 10th assist of the season in that game, teeing up Denis Zakaria for the Foals' fourth.
Filip Kostic (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Appearances: 34 (33 starts)
Assists: 10
Assists per game: 0.34
The unsung hero of Frankfurt's top-four push, Filip Kostic and his trusty left foot kept the likes of Haller, Luka Jovic and Ante Rebic in business. The Serbian served up two of Frankfurt's seven goals in their demolition of Fortuna Düsseldorf on Matchday 8, and produced a steady steam of assists since then, including five in seven games between Matchdays 22 and 29 as he finished the season having played in every game.
Kerem Demirbay (Hoffenheim)
Appearances: 26 (24 starts)
Assists: 9
Assists per game: 0.34
Adductor and ankle injuries kept the 25-year-old out of action at the start of the season and he only made his first appearance as a substitute on Matchday 6. The left-footed midfielder took a while to find form, contributing two goals and as many assists before the winter break, before exploding in the second half of the campaign. A 2017 Confederations Cup winner with Germany, Demirbay has stated that he aims to return to Joachim Löw's squad and it is surely only a matter of time given his recent displays, notching two goals and six assists in 2019 - including in four consecutive games between Matchdays 28 and 32. He'll be a UEFA Champions League player with Leverkusen next season as well.
Sebastien Haller (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Appearances: 29 (23 starts)
Assists: 9
Assists per game: 0.31
Sebastien Haller doesn't just take chances, he makes them, too. Frankfurt won six of the seven games in which the 14-goal Frenchman furnished an assist, with four coming in games against Hannover and Fortuna Düsseldorf during the first half of 2018/19. Due to injury problems, he only provided one after Matchday 15, however.
Max Kruse (Werder Bremen)
Appearances: 32 (32 starts)
Assists: 9
Assists per game: 0.28
Max Kruse was at the heart of Bremen's best work in 2018/19. Only one of his eight assists came in a losing effort - and that was against Bayern on Matchday 13. The Werder captain made it successive assists as the Green-Whites bounced back to down Fortuna, and set up goals in wins against Mainz, Schalke, Bayer Leverkusen and Freiburg between Matchdays 26 and 29.
Thomas Müller (Bayern Munich)
Appearances: 32 (28 starts)
Assists: 9
Assists per game: 0.28
Thomas Müller assisted more goals than he's scored (six) in 2018/19. That's fairly typical for the self-title Raumdeuter, who had out-assisted his total strike rate in five of his previous nine full Bundesliga seasons. Only once - when he scored a career-high 20 league goals in 2015/16 - has he failed to reach double figures for assists. His seventh of the campaign fell against Dortmund on Matchday 28 and he teed up Serge Gnabry to score in Düsseldorf on Matchday 29.
Kevin Volland (Bayer Leverkusen)
Appearances: 34 (32 starts)
Assists: 9
Assists per game: 0.26
A goalscorer by trade, the 26-year-old added assists to his repertoire in 2018/19, particularly since Peter Bosz took charge of the side for the second half of the campaign. He had only teed up goals for colleagues twice before the winter break, but has been laying them on regularly ever since, with Kai Havertz, Julian Brandt and Lucas Alario the main beneficiaries.
Marco Reus (Borussia Dortmund)
Appearances: 27 (27 starts)
Assists: 8
Assists per game: 0.29
Reus enjoyed his finest season to date in a Dortmund shirt, his 17 goals and eight assists proving absolutely vital to BVB's battle with Bayern for a first Bundesliga title since 2012. He began the season with a goal and assist, and hand a hand in three of Dortmund's four goals, scoring one, in the Black-Yellows' Matchday 30 rout of Freiburg. He ended the season with a goal against former side Gladbach, but it wasn't enough for BVB to win the league.
Florian Neuhaus (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
Appearances: 32 (25 starts)
Assists: 8
Assists per game: 0.25
Florian Neuhaus is the surprise name on the list, the 22-year-old Gladbach midfielder having only made his Bundesliga debut on Matchday 1 of 2018/19. He served up the first of his assists on that milestone afternoon against Leverkusen, and was averaging one every other game up to and including Matchday 14. He teed up Alassane Plea to score against Leipzig on Matchday 30, and in between times chipped in with three goals of his own.
On seven assists
Charles Aranguiz (Bayer Leverkusen)
Jean-Paul Boetius (Mainz)
Emil Forsberg (RB Leipzig)
Mario Götze (Borussia Dortmund)
Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
Jonathan Schmid (Augsburg)
Kevin Stöger (Fortuna Düsseldorf)
Wout Weghorst (Wolfsburg)
Timo Werner (RB Leipzig)
On six assists
Thiago (Bayern Munich)
Maximilian Arnold (Wolfsburg)
Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund)
Marcel Halstenberg (RB Leipzig)
Valentino Lazaro (Hertha Berlin)
Lukasz Piszczek (Borussia Dortmund)
Marco Richter (Augsburg)
Jonathan de Guzman (Eintracht Frankfurt)
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