In FIFA.com's latest stats review, the feats of Wayne Rooney and 15-year-old Sergio Diaz feature alongside successes for Germany, Racing Club and a quartet of European underdogs.
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matches and almost three years after their last goal from a direct free-kick, Racing Club belatedly profited from a set piece on Saturday. It was a strike worth the wait, with Gustavo Bou smashing home a swerving effort from over 30 yards to become the first dead-ball scorer for his club since Giovanni Moreno on 26 November 2011. And the goal was as important as it was spectacular, reducing River Plate's lead at the top to just one point ahead of Argentina's top two upcoming showdown in Avellaneda on Monday. It also continued a fine run of scoring form for Bou, who has now found the net ten times in his last nine appearances to move alongside River's Colombian star Teofilo Gutierrez at the top of the league's scoring chart.
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caps was the milestone reached by Wayne Rooney on Saturday, with the Manchester United forward becoming just the ninth England player - and the youngest of all time - to reach the century mark. Rooney then went on to make appearance number 101 last night, and both matches served as a reminder of his enduring worth to the Three Lions' cause. After all, the England captain scored three times across successive 3-1 wins over Slovenia and Scotland, moving on to 46 goals for his country - ahead of Jimmy Greaves (44) and just short of Gary Lineker (48) and record-holder Bobby Charlton. Roy Hodgson will certainly be grateful for the continued contribution of a player who has helped England rack up six wins on the bounce for the first time since 2006.
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matches and eight years without a home defeat - the longest such streak in world football - was the run that came to an end for Spain last night. Germany were the team to bring it to an close, with an 89th-minute winner from Toni Kroos reaffirming the world champions' status as the game's pre-eminent force. La Roja had been on their best-ever run against the Germans, having won all three meetings since 1982. They had also never lost any of their seven previous matches in Vigo. But all good things must come to an end and, thanks to Kroos's late match-winner, Vicente del Bosque suffered his first-ever defeat on home soil as national coach. More worrying for Spain is that this was their fifth loss in 12 matches during 2014, establishing this as their worst year since 1991.
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of Europe's five lowest-ranked nations registered shock successes over the past week, with the Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein, Malta and San Marino all picking up points in UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying. For San Marino, the point they secured in a 0-0 draw with Estonia was their first-ever in EURO preliminaries and ended a run of 61 straight defeats. The team from the tiny republic sit joint-bottom of the FIFA rankings, have avoided defeat just five times in their 123-match history and are yet to win a competitive match, with the only victory of their history having come in a friendly ten years ago. Liechtenstein were the team beaten in that historic encounter, but they too had cause to celebrate over the past week. They, in fact, went one better than San Marino, winning 1-0 in Moldova to end a 21-match winless streak of their own. It was their first victory in a competitive international since an identical win over the same opponents in 2011, and their first away from home since beating Luxembourg in a FIFA World Cup qualifier over a decade ago.Malta were also left toasting a memorable success after drawing 1-1 in Bulgaria, avoiding defeat away from home in the EURO qualifiers for the first time in seven years. Yet perhaps the biggest shock of all was sprung by the Faroe Islands, who claimed a stunning 1-0 win away to Greece. Joan Edmundsson scored the decisive goal as the Faroes inflicted a fourth straight home defeat on the Greeks - their worst such run in over three decades.
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goals in 2 appearances was the contribution made by Sergio Diaz to Cerro Porteno's title challenge over the past week. And if that seems a laudable but fairly unremarkable tally, it should be added that Diaz is still just 15. The youngster has been one of the revelations of this season's Paraguayan Division Profesional, having debuted back in June and opened his account for the club just a couple of months later. He won't turn 16 until 6 December, but Diaz - the youngest goalscorer in world football over the past week - already has seven top-flight goals to his name. The most recent of them came on Sunday, with Diaz twice hauling Cerro Porteno from behind in a 4-2 win over 12 de Octubre, and this just four days after he had found the net in a 5-0 thrashing of 3 de Febrero.