Moukoudi scores 33 points in a Team of the Week without the Premier League or the German Bundesliga

Seven competitions, eleven different clubs and not a single player from the Premier League, the German Bundesliga, Serie A or the Eredivisie. The cross-league Team of the Week for 9 to 11 October looks different from what you would expect, and it is also the first we have put together from only the sixteen competitions we are keeping. Why we now follow sixteen is explained in a separate post.

Between the posts is Milan Heca of Slovácko, who did something you rarely see from a goalkeeper. He set up a goal in the 0-2 win at Slovan Liberec in the Chance Liga, kept a clean sheet and finished on 21 points.

The defence produces the biggest performance of the weekend. Harold Moukoudi of AEK Athens scored and set up another in the 3-0 against OFI in the Greek Super League and reached 33 points, the highest total of any player. In the same competition Panagiotis Retsos of Olympiacos scored the only goal against Panathinaikos. Adam Gabriel of Viktoria Plzeň provided two assists in the 3-0 against Mladá Boleslav, and Emerson of Olympique Marseille laid on one in the 0-2 win at Troyes in Ligue 1. All three ended on 25 points.

In midfield Benjamin Böckle leads with 28 points. The Rheindorf Altach midfielder scored and assisted in the 3-0 against Wolfsberger AC in the Austrian Bundesliga. Isco scored twice in 74 minutes in Real Betis' 5-2 against Osasuna in La Liga and took the highest rating of the three with an 8.60. Gökhan Sazdağı of Çorum FK set up a goal in the 0-3 win at Gaziantep in the Süper Lig. His rating of 6.99 is the lowest in the whole team, while his 25 points are the second highest among the midfielders.

Up front, Bartosz Nowak of Katowice has the best rating in the team: a 9.04 for a goal and two assists in the 1-4 win at Raków Częstochowa in the Ekstraklasa. With 146 points this season he also has the highest season total of the eleven. Florian Thauvin of Lens provided two assists in the 2-1 against Olympique Lyonnais, and Marco Hoffmann of Hartberg scored three in the 4-3 against Austria Lustenau. That hat-trick is worth 22 points, the lowest score of any outfield player in this team.

Two of the biggest matches of the weekend produced no player for the team. Feyenoord beat AZ 2-0, with goals from Nacho Ferri and Javi López, after an AZ penalty was disallowed in the 43rd minute. Liverpool lost 0-3 to Manchester City, and all three goals, from Erling Haaland, Jérémy Doku and Rayan Cherki, came after Ryan Gravenberch was sent off in the 62nd minute for a second yellow card. The highest total from those two matches came from Javi López and Rúben Dias, both on 20 points, five below the cut-off for defenders.

What stands out to me is how close the big names were. Christopher Nkunku of RB Leipzig missed Isco's place by a single point on 23, Nicolò Cambiaghi of Bologna was one point behind Hoffmann on 21, and Marco Rente of FC Groningen fell two points short for the defenders on 23. So it was not a weak weekend for the big leagues, they missed the team by a point or two.

Which of these eleven would you have wanted in your own team, and who did you not see coming?