Hearts captain Christophe Berra is statistically the strongest defender aerially outside of Europe’s top five leagues.
The Tynecastle skipper has won the highest number of aerial defensive duels in the 26 European leagues outside of the big five – namely the top flights in England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France.
Berra has won 233 out of 268, giving him a success rate of 86.9% according analysis done by the CIES Football Observatory.
Second was Porto’s Felipe Augusto with a success rate of 85.5%, alongside Millwall’s Jake Cooper with the same percentage.
The 34-year-old also beat Celtic defenders Kristofer Ajer and Filip Benkovic, who both made the top ten.
Hibs’ Darren McGregor was 13th on the list with a success rate of 82.8%, one place ahead of Aberdeen’s Mikey Devlin and eight above Rangers’ Nikola Katic.
Berra's stats were even more impressive than those from Europe's top five leagues, with a higher percentage than Liverpool's Virgil Van Dijk, Leicester's Harry Maguire and Mats Hummels of Bayern Munich.
The Hearts captain will lead his side out at Hampden for the Scottish Cup final next month after Saturday’s 2-0 semi-final win over Inverness.
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