Penalties, predators and derby delight - THE WEEK IN NUMBERS
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| AFP |
Some of the biggest rivalries in world football feature in FIFA.com’s latest stats review, with derby drama in France, Germany and Spain jostling for position with goalscoring and penalty-saving masterclasses from Messrs Aguero and Gillet.
110 goals is the haul that has established Zlatan Ibrahimovic as Paris Saint-Germain’s all-time record scorer. The Swede equalled and then surpassed Pauleta’s erstwhile benchmark with a double in PSG’s 2-1 win over old rivals Marseille. Nor was this the only Pauleta record to fall on Sunday to Ibrahimovic, who also became Le Classique’s record marksman with his seventh and eighth strikes in the fixture. His goals secured PSG’s eighth successive win over Marseille, equalling a decade-old club record. The capital club have also found goals easy to come by against their southern rivals in recent times, having scored twice or more in each of their last nine competitive meetings.
9 goals in his last three Bundesliga matches have seen Robert Lewandowski set yet another record in the German top flight. This unprecedented scoring burst has taken the Bayern Munich star on to 12 league goals from his first eight matches, a haul that, in history of the Bundesliga, only Christian Muller (1964/65) and Gerd Muller (1968/69) had previously managed. Lewandowski’s latest goals came against former club Borussia Dortmund and established him as the first player to score five Der Klassiker goals for both teams. The on-fire forward now has 12 goals in his last four appearances for club and country, and 19 in 13 since the start of the season. Intriguingly, he is also becoming something of a second-half specialist, with all 12 of his Bundesliga strikes having arrived after half-time. Those efforts have certainly played a big part in giving Bayern a record-equalling start to the season, with Pep Guardiola’s side having won all eight of their league matches thus far.
6 derbies unbeaten is the home run that has enabled Atletico Madrid to equal a long-standing club record. Los Colchoneros had not strung together such a sequence against Real Madrid in over 70 years, since managing six-in-a-row between 1939 and 1944. Sunday’s 1-1 draw also means that Real have failed to win any of the last five top-flight derbies - home or away - for the first time in La Liga history. These statistics are all the more eye-catching as Atletico famously went for 14 years between 1999 and 2013 without a single derby triumph. For Cristiano Ronaldo, meanwhile, this was the fourth league match in succession in which he had failed to find the net – equalling his worst run since moving to Spain. And while Keylor Navas was beaten just once, and also stopped a penalty, he will know that Atletico goals account for 50 per cent (five of ten) of those he has conceded in a Madrid shirt.
5 goals in 20 minutes against Newcastle United on Saturday saw Sergio Aguero become an English Premier League record-breaker. Although four players had previously managed five in a single game, none had done so as quickly as the Manchester City star, with Jermain Defoe, Alan Shearer, Andy Cole and Dimitar Berbatov accruing their hauls in 36, 54, 65 and 68 minutes respectively. Aguero, who had gone 497 minutes without a top-flight strike before the weekend, is now level with Carlos Tevez on 84 as the Premier League’s joint highest-scoring Argentinian. Such five-star showings have seemingly become commonplace in Europe’s top leagues over recent weeks, with Aguero, Lewandowski and Ronaldo all having managed the feat within the space of just 22 days.
3 saved penalties made Mechelen goalkeeper Jean-Francois Gillet the unrivalled star of a dramatic 1-1 draw at Anderlecht on Sunday. Gillet’s stops denied three different players - Dennis Praet, Stefano Okaka and Youri Tielemans – before a Kara Mbodji own goal deep into stoppage time rubbed salt in Anderlecht wounds. This triple success unsurprisingly represented a personal record for the 36-year-old keeper, whose previous best came when he saved two spot-kicks against Brescia – including one from Andrea Pirlo – during his time with Bari. Anderlecht, meanwhile, are now on a run of four successive missed penalties, with their struggles from 12 yards now well established. Since 2012, Belgium’s record champions’ failure rate stands at a remarkable 47 per cent, with season 2012/13 alone having witnessed just six successes from 17 attempts.