It was another record-breaking year for football, so what better time than New Year’s Eve to look back over the past 12 months at some of the success stories?
If 2017 belonged to one player it was surely Harry Kane. The Tottenham Hotspur striker smashed Alan Shearer's 22-year-old record for most Premier League goals in a calendar year, signing off with two hat-tricks against Burnley and Southampton respectively.
Wayne Rooney broke a record even older than Shearer’s. His superb free kick against Stoke City last January took him to 250 Manchester United goals to overtake Bobby Charlton’s mark. He ended his Old Trafford career with more silverware with winner’s medals in the League Cup and Europa League before sealing a return to his boyhood club Everton.
We can't talk about success stories without mentioning Pep Guardiola's Manchester City. An 18-game winning streak can be extended against Crystal Palace on Sunday. And if a manager and a team's success should never be judged too far apart, then Raheem Sterling's emergence as a match-winner is one of Guardiola's biggest achievements.
It would be remiss of us not to mention Real Madrid. Bar the Copa del Rey Zinedine Zidane's side swept all before them in 2017: La Liga, repeat winners of the Champions League, Uefa and Spanish Super Cups - and they capped it all off in Abu Dhabi by becoming the first team to retain the Fifa Club World Cup in December.
Antonio Conte winning the Premier League in his first season at Chelsea, Mohamed Salah tearing down the house at Liverpool - join Steve Luckings and Graham Caygill as they look back on this and much more in the year that was in football.
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Read more:
- Watch: The five best sports moments of 2017
- Steve Luckings: 2017 has been the year of Kane, but will he still be at Spurs in 2018?
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