European football is back and how! Manchester City began their season in the best possible fashion by handing Chelsea a 2-0 thrashing, while Arne Slot enjoyed a successful Premier League debut in Liverpool's win over Ipswich Town.
Over in Spain, Robert Lewandowski struck a brace to power Barcelona past Valencia, while Real Madrid's title defence got off to a far-from-ideal start as they were held to 1-1 draw by Mallorca.
AC Milan pulled off a miraculous draw with Torino in the Serie A, while Bayer Leverkusen kick-started their season by winning the German Super Cup. Elsewhere in Saudi Arabia, Cristiano Ronaldo closed in on the 900-goal milestone but his Al-Nassr side was dealt with a tough loss against Al Hilal in the Saudi Super Cup.
ESPN's By The Numbers brings you best stats from the weekend:
3
Manchester City's 2-0 win over Chelsea marked their third straight win by a multi-goal difference in PL season openers. The only team with a longer streak in the last 15 seasons is, also Man City (4) between 2017-18 and 2020-21.
39 & 39
At 39 years and 39 days, Ashley Young became the oldest player to ever be sent off in the Premier League. Young is also the fifth player aged 39 years or older to make an appearance in the last 5 Premier League seasons and is the oldest Everton player to make a PL appearance since at least 2008-09.
9
Mohammed Salah broke a Premier League scoring record as the Egyptian's goal against Ipswich was his 9th opening game goal in Premier League, breaking a tie with Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney and Alan Shearer for the most in the 1st game of the season.
84
Bukayo Saka's goal against Wolves was his 84th career goal contribution in the Premier League, breaking a tie with Romelu Lukaku for the 5th-most goal contributions in the PL by a player before their 23rd birthday.
15 vs 12
Since joining Man City, Erling Haaland has 3 more goals than any other player vs 'Big 6' opponents in the Premier League. Salah is second with 12 goals.
2
Arne Slot became the second Liverpool head coach to record a victory on his league debut in Premier League, after Gérard Houllier in August 1998 (in a joint-management role with Roy Evans)
9 years
Aston Villa ended the 2023-24 season on a 4-game road losing streak in all competitions and had lost its last 4 Premier League openers on the road. Saturday was the first time Aston Villa won its first Premier League game of the season in a road fixture since 2015 against Bournemouth.
10/10
Robert Lewandowski has converted each of his last 10 penalty kicks for club and country since Memo Ochoa saved his penalty kick in the 2022 World Cup. His goal vs was Valencia was his 15th career game-winning goal for Barcelona in LaLiga, Neymar had 14 game-winning goals.
17 seasons
The last time Real Madrid won the LALIGA title after failing to win on matchweek 1 was 2006-07, when it opened up the season at home with a 0-0 tie vs Villarreal. Madrid won the league title over Barcelona based on head-to-head tie-breaker, despite having significantly fewer goals (78 to 66) and goal difference (+45 to +26) than Barcelona (both tied with 76 Pts).
3
AC Milan became just the third team in the last 10 Serie A seasons to earn a draw after trailing 2-0 in the 88th minute. Milan were trailing to Torino before Alvaro Morata and Noah Okafor's late strikes recued them from a loss. Only Fiorentina (2018) and Parma (2020) earned a tie in such a situation over the last decade.
1 & 3
Bayer Leverkusen beat VfB Stuttgart to clinch German Super Cup for the first time in their history. It's the club's 3rd title in the last 5 months (Bundesliga, DfB Pokal). And they got there in some fashion as Patrik Schick scored an 88th-minute equalizer for Leverkusen. Last season, Leverkusen had the most goals (20) by Bundesliga clubs in the 85th minute or later across all competitions. Leverkusen also had the most game-tying goals (4) in that time frame.
RONALDO-MESSI WATCH
66 and 898
Cristiano Ronaldo struck his 66th goal in 72 career games with Al Nassr, across competitions and his average of 0.92 goals per game is his 2nd best with any team (had 1.03 goals PG with Real Madrid). Ronaldo is also just two goals away from 900 career goals.
1-4
Ronaldo's Al Nassr lost 1-4 to Al-Hilal in the Saudi Super Cup, which was the largest margin of defeat by one of Ronaldo's teams since December 2023. His worst defeat was 5-0 (Real Madrid vs Barcelona in 2010, Man United vs Liverpool in 2021.
Most Popular
Comments / 0