Dimarco crowned Serie A’s Player of the Season after record-breaking assist year

You love to see it. A wing-back getting the major prize. Federico Dimarco has been named Serie A Player of the Season after a campaign that turned a wing-back role into one of the league’s most destructive creative platforms.

The Inter Milan defender finished the 2025/26 season with 17 assists, breaking Serie A’s all-time single-season assist record and doing it from a position that traditionally asks for as much discipline without the ball as imagination with it.

That is what makes the achievement stand out. Dimarco has not produced those numbers as a free No10, a wide forward or a set-piece specialist protected from defensive work. He has done it from wing-back, carrying Inter up the left side, stretching games, delivering early crosses, cutting balls back from advanced areas and repeatedly finding runners inside the box.

The assist map tells the story clearly. Most of Dimarco’s decisive passes came from the left channel, either close to the corner of the penalty area or slightly deeper, where his crossing range becomes so difficult to defend. Defenders have to choose whether to press him and leave space behind, or drop off and allow him time to shape the delivery. That dilemma has been punished all season.

Inter’s system is built to make the pitch wide, but Dimarco has given that width an edge. His delivery is not hopeful volume crossing. It is targeted, fast and varied. Some assists have come from whipped balls into the six-yard box, others from measured passes pulled back to midfield runners. He has made the same zone feel different depending on the movement ahead of him.

The record also says plenty about Inter’s attacking structure. Dimarco’s 17 assists reflect a team with patterns, timing and finishers in the right places. But it also reflects an individual who has become one of Serie A’s most reliable chance creators.

For a defender to win Player of the Season, the numbers have to be impossible to ignore. Dimarco’s were. In a league often defined by tactical control and defensive detail, he has shaped matches through creation rather than containment.

This was a season in which Inter’s left side became a weekly problem for opponents. Dimarco was the source of much of that trouble, combining work rate with precision and turning San Siro into his own crossing laboratory.

A wing-back winning Serie A’s top individual award will always feel unusual. With 17 assists and a league record, Dimarco made it unavoidable.