Five footballers who surprised us in a good way in 2020

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Bengaluru, Dec. 24: 2020 has been quite a wild ride and the world of football is no exception.

For most parts of the year, the fans were not even allowed to the stadiums due to the coronavirus scare and almost everything came to a standstill for a while.

However, life goes on and so does football and it is gradually coming back to normalcy. 2020 has been a year full of surprises and we came across a number of individuals who surprised us in a good way.

In this article, we will take a look at five such players who have performed way beyond expectations to shock the world in the year 2020.

Michail Antonio - West Ham United

Michail Antonio's journey from non-league football to the Premier League is truly remarkable but over the past year, the Englishman has reached whole new heights. If not for the 30-year-old's inspired run of form in the closing stages of the last season, West Ham United might not have even survived last season.

Tall, strong and exceptionally quick, Antonio can be a defender's nightmare on his day and he has scored a total of 12 goals in the calendar year 2020 despite missing a significant number of games through injury. The right-winger turned centre-forward has twice been called up for the England national team but has been unlucky to be withdrawn both times due to injury.

Domenico Berardi - Sassuolo

Always tipped to become one of the stars of the game, Domenico Berardi has not quite been able to reach his true potential yet but over the last year, he has shown signs of significant improvement.

A graduate of the Sassuolo academy, Berardi was highly-rated from a very young age and the fact he is still at his boyhood club at the age of 26 shows that his progress has not been as expected.

However, during the 2019-20 season, Berardi had a total of 24 Serie A goals and assists, exactly the double of his tally in 2018-19 and he looks on his way to reach similar number having already contributed with six goals and four assists this campaign.

Edmond Tapsoba - Bayer Leverkusen

The other names in this list might have seen their profiles rise higher during 2020 but in the case of Edmond Tapsoba, the rise has been unbelievable as the 21-year-old was probably even unheard of by most. The towering centre-back only signed for Portuguese side Vitória Guimarães in 2018 and soon was promoted to their first team having impressed for their B team. Bayer Leverkusen's scouts deserve every bit of praise for identifying the talent in the young defender and the Bundesliga side signed the 21-year-old in January 2020 for a fee of €18 million plus €7 million as add ons. The fee looks like a bargain now as the youngster already looks like one of the best young players in the planet and would at least command twice the price right now.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin - Everton

Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been a completely transformed player since the arrival of Carlo Ancelotti at Goodison Park. Before Ancelotti, the Englishman was seen as one of the weak links in the Everton side due to his lack of consistency and lack of goals but over the year 2020, he has seen a meteoric rise becoming one of the deadliest forwards in the Premier League.

The 23-year-old scored only 10 goals in 2019 before Ancelotti's arrival in Christmas but since then, he has scored a total of 24 including 14 this season. He has become the first Everton player to score two hat-tricks in a month since Dixie Dean in 1931.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic - AC Milan

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a true legend of the game and has seemingly aged like a fine wine. Very few predicted the 39-year-old to have the impact he has made at a club like Milan who have been struggling for years but the Swedish footballing legend has proved each of his doubters wrong having scored a total of 21 in 31 games for the Rossoneri since he signed for them in January. Ibrahimovic's numbers in the MLS for LA Galaxy was thoroughly impressive but having such a huge impact at the age of 39 in a league like Serie A deserves the top spot in this list.