European Team of the Season: GK - Gianluigi Donnarumma (AC Milan)

The top rated goalkeeper across Europe’s top 5 leagues, 2016/17 was a campaign in which Gianluigi Donnarumma more than lived up to the hype.

At 18 the giant manchild played every single minute of another underwhelming season for Milan on paper, though it was one that offered hope for the future, with Donnarumma key to that optimism. Vincenzo Montella gave youth a chance and while he was not responsible for the teenage keeper’s call-up to the first team - now established as the Rossoneri’s undisputed number one for 18 months - the manager’s faith in the youngster never wavered.

Nor should it either, given that Donnarumma’s heroics helped the club to a Europa League finish in sixth, owing much to a respectable defensive record having netted a modest 57 goals at the other end. It’s not really the defence that should take the credit though, given that their keeper was forced into the most saves in the entire league (146). 

For those that feel the Milan stopper’s evergreen idol Gianluigi Buffon is harshly overlooked here, he had to produce just 67 all season by comparison. The fact, then, that Donnarumma kept as many clean sheets (12) as the Juve legend - albeit from eight more appearances - and fewer only than Wojciech Szczesny (14) in Serie A, was a superb achievement for a keeper kept so busy. 

As a result not only did the teen sensation produce the most saves in Italy, but he did so while boasting the best save success rate from shots on target faced (77.2%). Moreover, his size means that the Azzurri international is not fazed by balls into the box either, so much so that top of the pile for successful cross claims in Serie A, with 45, is… you guessed it!

It’s time to realise that Donnarumma isn’t just one of the top young keepers around, but is already staking a claim among the very best on the continent, with a WhoScored.com rating of 7.05 earning the starting spot in our European team of the season.