Between them, the Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 had pretty much everything in 2022-23 and didn’t disappoint.
Borussia Dortmund‘s extraordinary collapse in the last minutes of the season allowed Bayern Munich to snatch the title away from them and become champions of Germany for an 11th straight year despite having their worst season for a decade.
It was a similar story in France, where Paris Saint-Germain were underwhelming champions. It was left to Lens, three years after being in Ligue 2, to truly impress by finishing second in the top flight.
At least Serie A has champions who captured the imagination, with Napoli becoming champions in Italy for the first time in 33 years. This was after Juventus were docked 10 points for false accounting in the club’s transfer dealings. Inter Milan may have beaten local rivals AC Milan to reach the Champions League final, but both local rivals were well off the title pace domestically.
There were big clubs getting relegated in each league, too, with Sampdoria and Schalke 04 both going down. One of Nantes or Auxerre will also be playing second-tier football next season.
Here the stories of each league are told through our best and worst XIs of the past 10 months.
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Best XI of 2022-23 (4-4-2)
Goalkeeper: Frederik Ronnow (Union Berlin)
Defenders: Jeremie Frimpong (Bayer Leverkusen), Willi Orban (RB Leipzig), Nico Schlotterbeck (Borussia Dortmund), Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund)
Midfielders: Moussa Diaby (Bayer Leverkusen), Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Joshua Kimmich (Bayern Munich), Serge Gnabry (Bayern Munich)
Forwards: Christopher Nkunku (RB Leipzig), Randal Kolo Muani (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Manager: Urs Fischer (Union Berlin)
It should not come as a surprise that this team only has two Bayern Munich players in it. The miraculous champions have been average this season by their standards and it is reflected here, even if Jamal Musiala and Matthijs De Ligt were very close to making it. In goal, Frederik Ronnow has been superb for Union Berlin. His expected goals against (xGA) is 35 but he actually only conceded 27 goals in the league, and he kept 11 clean sheets in 29 games. His back four has two wonderful full-backs, Jeremie Frimpong from Leverkusen and Raphael Guerreiro from Dortmund, both very attack-minded, while there is experience at the back with Willi Orban and youth with Nico Schlotterbeck.
Jude Bellingham is the player of the season and he leads the midfield with Joshua Kimmich. On the wings, Moussa Diaby, who was excellent at Leverkusen under coach Xabi Alonso, starts on the right with Serge Gnabry, Bayern’s best attacking player this season, on the left.
Up front, Christopher Nkunku missed half of the season through injury and still finished level with Niclas Fullkrug at the top of the scoring charts with 16 goals and four assists in his 20 starts (Werder Bremen‘s Fullkrug claimed one more assist, with five.) Next to him, another Parisian player in Randal Kolo Muani, who has been a huge revelation this season. The 24-year-old France international netted 15 times and assisted another 11 in the league, and took his game to the next level.
