Barcelona’s Seydou Keita took the lead in the FTBL ranking of African midfielders with a hat-trick in the Catalans’ 6:1 clobbering of Real Zaragoza in La Liga yesterday.

The Mali international earned a whopping 42.90 rating points in the FTBL system to take his tally to 110.24 points and overtake Arsenal’s Cameroon international Alexandre Song (102.64 points) at the top of the ranking.

Keita has a perfect opportunity to break into the World Top 23: his plank to beat in the next game against Osasuna will amount to a lowly 1.63 rating points. A win for Barcelona will guarantee a spot in our list of the world’s best players for the African international.