The 8 best players in European football Gameweek 2 – ranked

The 2024/25 season delivered some more incredible matches across Europe in what was a high-scoring weekend on the continent.

While it was Gameweek 2 for most of the top divisions, the Bundesliga kicked off on Friday night with some more late Bayer Leverkusen drama. Elsewhere, Europe’s elite sides racked up plenty of goals, with an array of hat-tricks from some familiar, and less familiar, faces.

Here are the top performers from the second round of fixtures across Europe.

Juventus have kicked off the Thiago Motta era with back-to-back 3-0 victories and Hellas Verona were on the wrong end of a comfortable win for the Turin side in gameweek two.

Dusan Vlahovic was the standout performer in a new-look Juventus team, bagging a brace with a low strike in the first half and a penalty after the restart.

Despite playing the entirety of the match, the Serbian striker was unable to add his name to a long list of hat-trick scorers this weekend.

Paris Saint-Germain have swiftly found their shooting boots at the beginning of the 2024/25 season, netting ten times in their opening two matches. Six of those came against Montpellier on Friday, with a host of players dazzling in the French capital.

Bradley Barcola bagged a brace, while Ousmane Dembele and summer recruit Joao Neves grabbed a pair of assists each, but it was Achraf Hakimi that was the leading performer.

The Moroccan defender scored, assisted and kept a clean sheet in the rout, winning 67% of his duels, taking three shots and boasting a match-high 113 touches.

The Primeira Liga is always played on easy mode by Sporting CP striker Viktor Gyokeres. After bagging three goals in his opening two fixtures, he doubled his tally for the season with a well-taken hat-trick against Farense on Friday night.

The first was a calm finish on the rebound, the second an accurate driven penalty and the third an excellent run and low left-footed strike beyond the Farense goalkeeper.

Six goals in the first three games is not a bad return for the 2023/24 Primeira Liga top scorer.

Tottenham Hotspur‘s profligacy proved costly in their Premier League opener but the Lilywhites made amends with a four-goal haul against Everton on Saturday.

In the absence of the injured Dominic Solanke, talisman Son Heung-min starred from the left wing and netted twice in the 4-0 demolition.

He was helped by a sloppy Jordan Pickford for his opener, robbing the Everton stopper of possession before sliding into an empty net, and his second was a left-footed effort late in the match.

4. Jamie Gittens

English winger Jamie Gittens got off to the perfect start in what could be a breakout 2023/24 season for the 20-year-old. In Borussia Dortmund‘s Bundesliga opener, he grabbed himself a brace from the bench to secure a 2-0 win in Nuri Sahin’s debut outing.

A gorgeous strike opened the scoring, with Gittens completing a couple of stepovers before cutting inside and arrowing a powerful effort beyond Kevin Trapp.

His second of the evening came in stoppage time on the counter-attack, with the youngster driving 60 yards up the field before slotting a calm effort into the back of the net.

3. Andrej Kramaric

Andrej Kramaric has been a relentless goalscorer for Hoffenheim for what feels like an eternity and he kicked off 2024/25 with a hat-trick against newly promoted Holstein Kiel.

A composed penalty was followed up by two instinctive finishes from close range, meaning he has already netted 17.6% of the goals he managed for the German outfit last season.

He finished up with a game-high 11 touches in the opposition penalty box and four shots on target, while he sat second across the pitch for touches (67) and expected assists (0.49).

At the beginning of his third season with Manchester City, two-time Premier League Golden Boot winner Erling Haaland netted his tenth hat-trick for the club against newly promoted Ipswich Town at the weekend.

The relentless sharpshooter fired home a penalty and took advantage of some poor goalkeeping to score twice in the opening 16 minutes, claiming the match ball with a powerful effort from distance in the closing stages.

It was a rude awakening for the Ipswich defence, who were bullied from first minute to last by the mighty Norwegian during their 4-1 defeat – despite the fact that he only managed 22 touches throughout the match.

Haaland may be used to netting hat-tricks but Noni Madueke isn’t. The winger bagged the first trio of goals in his senior career during a bizarre 6-2 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday afternoon, with all of his strikes being set up by Cole Palmer.

Despite being linked with a summer exit, Madueke has impressed in the opening weeks of the season, scoring against Servette in Europe midweek. The direct and speedy winger offers Chelsea something unique on the right flank.

“He’s cold and I’m fire,” said Madueke of his partnership with Palmer after the match. It’s hard to argue with that assessment.