Mbappé? Hakimi? Who are the fastest players in this season's Champions League?
Wednesday, December 14, 2022
Article summary
Paris pair Kylian Mbappé and Achraf Hakimi go head to head in the FIFA World Cup semi-finals, but where do they rank among the speediest performers in the globe's top club competition?
Article top media content
Article body
If Achraf Hakimi is asked to rein in his Paris team-mate Kylian Mbappé when Morocco take on France in the FIFA World Cup semi-finals, he is likely to have a better chance than most of keeping pace with the explosive forward.
Mbappé has scored five goals at the finals already, leaving defenders in his wake in the process. However, it is a measure of the immense athleticism in the UEFA Champions League that Mbappé's fastest sprint in this season's competition (clocked at 35.6 km/h) leaves him only 11th in the 2022/23 rankings, with his France team-mates Ousmane Dembélé and Theo Hernández among ten players who have run faster.
Hakimi is no slouch himself, though, the 24-year-old having been clocked at 35 km/h this season. That speed earns him a place in the top 20 in the current campaign with Mbappé the only Paris player to record a higher figure. Nonetheless, he will have his work cut out when Morocco and France face off at the Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor on Wednesday.
Who has the highest top speed in the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League?
36.6 Mykhailo Mudryk (Shakhtar, UKR)
36.6 Ousmane Dembélé (Barcelona, FRA)
36.5 Rafael Leão (AC Milan, POR)
36.3 Federico Valverde (Real Madrid, URU)
36.2 Nuno Tavares (Marseille, POR)
36.2 Alphonso Davies (Bayern, CAN)
36.1 Moussa Diaby (Leverkusen, FRA)
36.1 Karim Adeyemi (Dortmund, GER)
35.9 Rafa Silva (Benfica, POR)
35.7 Theo Hernández (AC Milan, FRA)
35.6 Kylian Mbappé (Paris, FRA)
35.6 Pepê (Porto, BRA)
Generally regarded as the greatest sprinter of all time, Usain Bolt hit a speed of 44.7km during one record-breaking race but that was without a ball at his feet.