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In FIFA.com’s latest weekly stats review, the remarkable league runs of Olympiacos and Porto feature alongside a landmark goal for Wayne Rooney, a ten-goal show from Monaco and the sacking of Rafael Benitez.
341days and 30 matches without a league defeat was the mammoth streak that came to an end for Porto on Saturday. Sporting Lisbon were the team to bring it to a close, inflicting the first Portuguese Liga reverse on Julen Lopetegui’s side since last January. Islam Slimani scored both goals in a 2-0 win, moving on to double figures for the season, as Sporting extended a seven-year unbeaten run in this particular fixture. The victory also saw Jorge Jesus’ side leapfrog Porto and return to the top of the table as they continue their pursuit of a first league title in 14 years.
238Manchester United goals and 188 Premier League strikes were the tallies to which Wayne Rooney ascended on Saturday, taking him past two legendary predators. By topping up his Red Devils account, the England captain moved beyond Denis Law into outright second in the club’s all-time scorers’ list, with Bobby Charlton’s record just 11 goals away. Rooney is also now in outright second place in the Premier League list, having eclipsed Andy Cole (187), though Alan Shearer’s 260-goal benchmark remains some way off. The 30-year-old’s latest strike, his first in the league since mid-October, sealed a 2-1 victory over Swansea City that ended an eight-match winless streak for United. Goals continue to prove elusive, though, for a Red Devils team that has now failed to score in the first half of any of their last nine matches at Old Trafford.
188days after taking charge of Real Madrid, Rafael Benitez was sacked on Monday. That brief tenure – the shortest enjoyed by any Merengues coach since Mariano Garcia Remon (103 days) 12 years ago – encompassed just 25 competitive matches. In Madrid’s illustrious, 114-year history, only three coaches have overseen fewer. Benitez’s loss was, of course, the gain of Zinedine Zidane, who stepped forward to become the club’s 47th coach - and the first-ever Frenchman to hold the position.
16matches played, 16 victories: that is the start to the season that has equalled an Olympiacos club record and made another league title all but a certainty. The serial Greek champions are already 18 points clear of second-placed AEK Athens thanks to this perfect start to the season, which has seen them score 44 goals and concede just nine. Panionios were their latest victims on Sunday, losing 3-1 at home, and Olympiacos will set a new record at the weekend should they see off Levadiakos. Victory will also take them another step closer to a seemingly inevitable seventh straight championship, the club’s 18th in the last 20 seasons. Nonetheless, they have some way to go before they can eye a European record league winning streak, with the target an incredible 29-match run strung together by Benfica between 1971 and 1973.
10goals were racked up by Monaco on Sunday as the French club reached double figures in a single match for the first time in their 97-year history. Amateur side St Jean Beaulieu were their victims in a 10-2 Coupe de France demolition that saw the south-coast side score as many times in 90 minutes as they had in their previous ten matches combined. Resounding as the win was, it did fall just short of the club’s record scoreline of 9-0, recorded against Bordeaux in 1986 and Montelimar in 1973. That record might have been claimed had Lacina Traore not been red-carded at half-time after scoring four goals in the space of just 24 first-half minutes. The Ivorian duly missed out on the chance to equal or surpass the five-goal club record set by Henri Biancheri in 1958, although he did become just the tenth Monaco player to score four in a single match.