Suarez to the four amid silverware and stalemates - THE WEEK IN NUMBERS
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In FIFA.com’s latest stats review, we reflect on a historic week for Luis Suarez, title-winners in Italy and Hong Kong, and England’s champions-elect.
21 years spent searching for a league title was the wait that ended for Hong Kong’s Eastern on Friday. The new national kings beat record 41-time champions South China and, in doing so, crossed the finish line with a game to spare. Yet what made their achievement reverberate around the world is that it was masterminded by a female coach. Chan Yuen-Ting, who is just 27 and has lost only one of her 15 matches in charge, is the first woman in world football to win a top-flight title with a men’s team.
14 games without defeat have given Leicester City their best home run since 1933, and taken them to within three points of the Premier League title. The Foxes, who have lost just one of their last 21 matches at home, edged closer to this remarkable achievement with their biggest win of the season so far: a 4-0 drubbing of Swansea on Sunday. Claudio Ranieri's side’s position improved even further on Monday when challengers Tottenham Hotspur drew 1-1 with West Bromwich Albion, this after Craig Dawson became the first Baggies player to score both for and against his team in a Premier League match. And Leicester’s dream week was topped off by Riyad Mahrez becoming the first African to win England’s Professional Footballers' Association Player of the Year award.
5 successive Serie A titles was the landmark reached by Juventus on Monday, emulating a feat the La Vecchia Signora achieved just once before: between 1931 and 1935. The record 32-time champions are the only club in Italy to have won five-in-a-row more than once. Juve retained their crown this season despite a dreadful start; indeed, they are the first team to win Serie A having lost four of their opening ten matches, and having picked up just one point from their first three. Despite finding themselves 11 points off the top in late October, the Turin giants now sit 12 points clear – having won 24 of their 25 matches in the intervening period.
4 goals in back-to-back games is a feat that no-one in Spain's La Liga had ever achieved – until Luis Suarez made history on Saturday. The Barcelona striker hit the net eight times across his side’s matches against Deportivo La Coruna and Sporting Gijon, scoring with all eight of his shots on target. In the former encounter, an 8-0 demolition, Suarez also contributed a trio of assists – becoming the first Barça player to score four and lay on another three in a single top-flight match. With 53 goals in 49 matches in all competitions this season, 2015/16 is already the most prolific campaign of the Uruguayan’s career, surpassing the 49-goal campaign he enjoyed with Ajax in 2009/10. He is also just the second Barça player after Lionel Messi to break through the 50-mark in a single season.
0 goals in four matches on Sunday and just five in ten across the entire weekend. That was the disappointing story of a clásico-packed schedule in Argentina’s top flight, with Saturday and Sunday’s derbies producing more red cards (7) than goals. The latest Superclásico between Boca Juniors and River Plate was just one of the games that ended in stalemate, this in a round of fixtures in which 19 of the 30 Primera Division teams failed to find the net.
Quick hits
47 seconds were on the clock at Wolfsburg on Saturday when Alfred Finnbogason broke the deadlock with the fastest Bundesliga goal of Augsburg’s history.
22 foreign players made up the Inter Milan and Udinese starting line-ups on Saturday, making theirs the first match in Serie A history to kick off without a single Italian on the field.
22 years without a Saudi league title was the run that came to a welcome end for Al Ahli on Sunday when they beat record champions Al Hilal to claim just the third national championship of their history.
19 FA Cup finals was the Arsenal record equalled by Manchester United on Sunday when they beat Everton 2-1 in a thrilling Wembley semi-final.
6 Coupe de la Ligues have now been won by Paris Saint-Germain after their latest trophy was secured in a 2-1 win against Lille with goals from Angel Di Maria and Javier Pastore. Already the tournament’s most successful team, PSG now have double the successes of their nearest challengers: three-time winners Bordeaux and Marseille.