A man not short of debate this season, nevertheless, Alexis Sánchez has after the win versus Betis been involved in 50% of FC Barcelona’s last 22 goals. The Chilean winger has scored five goals and given six assists in the last eight matches.
With his exquisite goal versus Athletic Bilbao, Lionel Messi scored his 24th league away goal of the season. That’s a new record, beating out the previous record of 23, set by Cristiano Ronaldo last season. He simultaneously broke another record, described after the jump.
FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich are juggernauts of the football world both on and off the field. One day remains before the epic clash and among the many interesting story lines, the battle for the ball may be most intriguing of all. More after the jump.
Last night’s victory over Zaragoza marked the 300th consecutive game in which FC Barcelona has controlled the majority of possession. The last time a team had more of the ball than Barça was May 7, 2008, nearly five years ago, when Real Madrid managed 50.5%. More after the jump.
FC Barcelona moved closer to another La Liga title with Sunday night’s victory over Real Zaragoza. The team requires only 9 more points out of the remaining 21 to mathematically clinch the Club’s 22nd La Liga title. After the jump is a look at the remaining matches of the 2012/2013 season.
6 – With progress tonight to the semi-finals in the 2012/3 UEFA Champions League, it marks FC Barcelona’s 6th consecutive trip to this stage of the competition, an all-time record. More after the jump.
37 years, 149 days – with his participation over the weekend, José Manual Pinto became the oldest player to participate in a La Liga match for FC Barcelona.
Pinto came in under the radar but nobody can dispute he has been of value to the club and never let us down.
The official FC Barcelona site reports that out of seven games against French teams at the Camp Nou in the past, six final results would be favourable considering the current standing after the first leg at the Parc de Princes (2-2). More information of the past encounters against French teams after the jump!
On Saturday night’s game against RCD Mallorca, FC Barcelona midfielder Alex Song finished the game with 108 out of 115 passes reaching the intended target, thus achieving a completion rate of 94%. What did you think of Song’s performance on Saturday? Let us know in the comments!
Source: Mundo Deportivo; Image Credit: Miguel Ruiz/FCB
1 – Cesc Fàbregas has a trophy cabinet most envy, and there are surely more trinkets to come, but in all that he had never accomplished one feat: the hat-trick. Therefore, Saturday evening’s three goals versus Mallorca is a landmark moment for Cesc, his first ever professional hat-trick.
Image Credit: David Ramos/Getty Images
Lionel Messi will not be scoring another goal, well at least for FC Barcelona, for 10 more days. Which in itself is quite incredible. But it won’t be for any other reason than a FIFA delay for another international break. So now is a fitting moment to both dive into the details of his 42 league goals as well as compare the great man against his professional colleagues.
Never in the history of the Champions League knockout stages has a team recovered from a 2-0 loss in the first leg. That is…until last night.
Following his goal against Deportivo de la Coruña, Lionel Messi has broken yet another world record by scoring in 17 consecutive league matches. The previous record was held by Ruch Chorzów forward, Teodor Peterek, where the Polish striker scored 22 goals in 16 matches between 1937 and 1938. In the last 17 matches, Messi has totaled 27 goals with a ratio of 1.59(!) goals per game.
Lionel Messi has, by anyone’s standards, defied all logic in the footballing world over the last few years.
Ever since his La Liga debut against RCD Espanyol on 16 October 2004 (at 17 years and 114 days of age) during the Frank Rijkaard era at Barça, it was clear that here was a player whose impact and legacy on the game would be immeasurable.
123 – Number of goals scored by Lionel Messi in his last 100 La Liga matches.
Thursday’s Copa del Rey quarterfinal against Málaga CF saw FC Barcelona reach its 100th goal in all competitions. Goal number 100 was fittingly scored by Messi, which saw his season total reach 40 goals with Tito Vilanova in charge. The list of all scorers is as follows:
Saturday evening’s defeat to Real Sociedad was the first league match since March 2009 that FC Barcelona have lost when Lionel Messi has scored.
Source: @MessiStuff; Image Credit: REUTERS/Santiago Ferrero
As of today, FC Barcelona’s 113th birthday, the club has played 3,679 official games in that time span. There have been 2,080 wins (57%), 750 draws (20%), and 849 defeats (23%).
Total goals scored are 7,774 (2.1 per game) and goals conceded have been 4,183 (1.1 per game).
Again, per molts anys FC Barcelona!
Twelve wins and 1 draw from the opening 13 matches of the 2012/13 La Liga season sees FC Barcelona sitting on 37 points. This near perfection is not only a club record, but now on par with the all-time La Liga record. It was set back in 1991/92 by Real Madrid under the stewardship of Radomir Antić (who later coached FC Barcelona).
After Tuesday’s match in Moscow, Lionel Messi has now scored in 19 different cities during the UEFA Champions League competition. That equals the record held by Real Madrid legend Raúl.
The brace on Tuesday also took Messi’s total goal tally to 56, putting him level with the number 2 all-time scorer Ruud van Nistelrooy. Raúl, with 71, holds the ultimate record.
Prior to the weekend’s tie versus Real Zaragaoza, Xavi Hernández became the only player in Europe’s annointed top 5 leagues to successfully complete over 1, 000 passes in domestic competition. This was completed in 11 league matches. In those matches Xavi attempted 1, 054 passes and completed 1, 007 giving him an incredibly success rate of 95.54%.
FC Barcelona have other representatives in the top 10, as well as some ex-players. Former La Masia graduate Mikel Arteta was 2nd with 994 successful passes, Yaya Touré was 4th with 934, Sergio Busquets was 6th with 841 and Cesc Fàbregas sat in 8th position completing 796 passes.
Football is not played in the histories of statistics, but they are interesting nonetheless and often enough provide reliable trends. And in this case, the stats bode relatively well for FC Barcelona’s match tomorrow night in Russia versus Spartak Moscow.
It should not be a surprise to anyone that the subject of this piece is Lionel Andres Messi. According to the statistics for the 2012/13 season, Messi has broken or equaled no less than 43 records as of October 28, 2012. Some seem a bit arbitrary but remain impressive while others are just special indeed. [Our sincere apologies for initially posting this without attributing the original sources!]
Lionel Messi’s brace Sunday evening took his 2012 calendar year goal tally to 76. With that cracker into the top corner, Messi blasted past the 75 (66 – Santos, 9 - Brazil) that legendary Brazilian Pelé set in 1958. Pelé manged this feat in 53 matches, therefore scoring 1.42 goals per match. As of right now, Messi’s 76 are broken down into 64 for Barça and 12 for Argentina. Messi’s goals per game ratio is at 1.29 after 59 official matches played in 2012.
With 9 matches left in 2012, Messi needs 9 goals more to equal the all time record of 85 (67 – Bayern Munich, 18 - Germany) held by Gerd Muller since 1972. The German’s record is quite something though, with those 85 scored in just 60 matches (1.42 goals per game). Nine matches, 9 goals, you wouldn’t bet against him.
Pundits and fans alike have noticed, but here are the numbers to back it up. Statistics on FC Barcelona’s football this season under Tito Vilanova point to a more direct approach. Possession and total number of passes per game have not fluctuated in any significant way from other recent season, remaining around 70% and 700 respectively, but there has been a key variation specifically related to territory.
To whet your appetite for tonight’s Champions League encounter against Celtic, below you can feast on the key historical facts of previous encounters:
Exciting. Nervewracking. Surreal. Take your pick as each and every one of these words can fairly describe the bizarre event that was Deportivo vs FC Barcelona on Saturday evening. As has been commonplace (amazingly) over the recent years, another match results in more historic records and statistics to note and reflect upon. Though not all are good this time.
Let’s start with the good news. Come on, obviously it’s Lionel Messi. Two tough (and rough) matches in South America, baby number one on the way: no bother, hat-trick time. With those goals, Messi has now scored three or more goals for FC Barcelona 15 times. That’s a club record, beating César’s record of 14.
“And you? You don’t shoot?” That’s what Juan Carlos Unzué, goalkeeping coach under Frank Rijkaard and Pep Guardiola, asked Lionel Messi one day at training during his early days in the first team.
“No,” Messi responded.
Training that day was over but young Messi was sitting and watching Ronaldinho and Deco practicing their free kicks. In one way, Unzué understood, Messi was respecting the hierarchy of the team; Ronaldinho was the leader and as such, assumed the responsibilities he desired. And before he let the club down with his extracurricular activities, Ronaldinho wasn’t too shabby with the dead ball. The Brazilian did it all: over the wall, under the wall, he could blast it or curve it delicately. Messi knew at that time it was not his team. But he continued to watch. Unzué noted that even though Messi was only an observer, he was observing everything. Learning.
With his 2 goals scored Sunday, Lionel Messi became the first FC Barcelona player ever to score 100 La Liga goals at the Camp Nou.
Source: fcbarcelona.es; Image: JOSEP LAGO/AFP/GettyImages
Lionel Messi scores a hat-trick for FC Barcelona every 18 games (22 hat-tricks in 412 games).
And even though I loathe the apparently mandated need to compare, the Clásico is coming up so, Cristiano Ronaldo has a ratio of 1 hat-trick for every 35 games (18 in 575) over his professional career.
Source: @MessiStuff; Image: AP Photo/Manu Fernandez
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