Teens, titans and derby delight - HE WEEK IN NUMBERS
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The Lisbon and Tyne-Wear derbies both feature in FIFA.com’s latest weekly stats review, which also looks at AC Milan’s 16-year-old debutant, France’s free-scoring U-17 stars and Bayern Munich’s latest record.
1000 Bundesliga wins was the landmark reached by Bayern Munich in predictably impressive style on Saturday. The German champions became the first team to achieve this milestone, with Werder Bremen, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Borussia Dortmund trailing behind in the historical table on 741, 721, 711 and 710 respectively. Bayern reached the 1000-mark with a 4-0 win over Cologne, their tenth victory in as many Bundesliga games this season. Previously, only three teams in Europe’s top five leagues had managed to open the season with ten straight wins: English duo Tottenham Hotspur (1960/61) and Manchester United (1985/86) and, more recently, Italy’s Roma (2013/14). Robert Lewandowski was on target in the Bavarians' latest victory, continuing his remarkable race with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to finish as Germany’s top scorer. Both are currently locked together on 13 league strikes, with Aubameyang having enjoyed another week to remember, scoring two hat-tricks within the space of 72 hours to take his tally in all competitions to 20 in 17 appearances.
31 months after their last home league loss, and nine years on from their most recent derby defeat at the Estadio da Luz, Benfica saw both runs ended by old rivals Sporting. Nor was this an ordinary reverse, with Os Leões – led by Jorge Jesus on his first return to Benfica since switching sides during the summer – emerging with an emphatic 3-0 victory. It was their biggest away win in the Lisbon derby since 1947, and equalled the club’s record margin of victory at Benfica. Sporting are without a league title in 13 years, but now top the Liga standings, eight points clear of their eighth-placed city rivals.
16 years and 242 days was the tender age at which Gianluigi Donnarumma made his Serie A debut for AC Milan on Sunday. The teenage goalkeeper duly became the second-youngest debutant in I Rossoneri’s history, having been 34 days older than a certain Paolo Maldini when he made his league bow in January 1985. Donnarumma also just missed out on becoming the youngest goalkeeper ever seen in Serie A, a record that still belongs to Gianluca Pacchiarotti, who made his debut for Pescara in 1980 just 192 days after turning 16. Pacchiarotti did, however, come on as a substitute, so Donnarumma is the most youthful keeper to have started a match in the Italian top flight. The youngest Serie A debutant overall is former Italy striker Amadei, who was 15 years, nine months and 14 days old when he turned out for Roma in a 2-2 draw with Fiorentina on 2 May 1937.
14 goals in just three matches is the tally that has enabled France to set a new European benchmark in the FIFA U-17 World Cup group stage. Les Bleuets have been in rampant form thus far, scoring an average of 4.67 goals per game en route to surpassing Germany’s erstwhile record for a European team of 11, set in the first phase of the 2007 and 2011 editions. The French, who came within a single goal of Brazil’s overall tournament record from 2013, are five clear of the Germans in the Chile 2015 scoring chart and, impressively, all 14 of their goals have come from open play. There has also been an even spread throughout their squad, with no individual player having found the net more than twice. Like France, reigning champions and record four-time winners Nigeria are also through to the last 16 as group winners. However, the African outfit missed out on setting a new U-17 World Cup record for consecutive victories, with defeat to Croatia leaving them level on seven with Brazil (1997-1999), Mexico (2011) and Switzerland (2009).
4 successive Sunderland managers have now achieved their first win at the club in the Tyne-Wear derby after Sam Allardyce continued the trend on Sunday. Like Paolo Di Canio, Gus Poyet and Dick Advocaat before him, Allardyce began his Black Cats career with a defeat before beating the Magpies in his second match in charge. This remarkable symmetry was maintained by a 3-0 win at the Stadium of Light that left Sunderland fans celebrating a club record streak of six successive wins over their biggest rivals. It was also the first time in 11 months that they had scored three or more in a Premier League match, and ended a run of 12 top-flight matches without a win. Elsewhere in England, Jamie Vardy became just the eighth different player – and the first from outside the division’s ‘big five’ – to score in at least seven consecutive Premier League matches. The England striker found the net again on Saturday to help Leicester City to their 100th Premier League win and, with ten goals to his name, has a better tally this season than five top-flight clubs, Liverpool included.