Stat, Viz, Quiz is the Opta Analyst football newsletter. This week’s edition looks at Barcelona’s goal-laden start to La Liga, asks whether long-range strikes are back, and gives the Opta supercomputer numbers on the Champions League.
Smell that? That’s the sweet, sweet aroma of club football tickling your nostrils once more. Inhale it. Savour it. How we missed thee.
One club who picked up straight from where they left off were Barcelona. The Spanish giants entered the international break with a thumping 7-0 win against Real Valladolid, and they emerged from it by putting four past Girona. We put their goal-laden start into historical context.
In England, the Premier League bore witness to some Certified Bangers this weekend. Jhon Durán’s screamer was the winner as Aston Villa beat Everton 3-2, while both Fabian Schär and Harvey Barnes scored from long-range to help Newcastle come from behind to beat Wolves. It continues a trend of long-range goals we’re seeing this season, and we dig into those numbers.
Elsewhere, the Champions League is back. Or should we say the new Champions League starts. We have an Ask Opta question AND a quiz on that topic. Lucky you. Here we go.
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STAT – Barcelona’s Goal-Crazy Start to La Liga
Barcelona have made a perfect start to the season. They’ve won all five of their games in La Liga and have already established a four-point lead over the trio of Atlético Madrid, Real Madrid and Villareal. It’s only the 10th time in the club’s history that they’ve won all five of their first five matches.
But perhaps most eye-catching about their start has been the number of goals they’ve scored. The Catalans added another four this weekend, dispatching Girona 4-1, and that took their tally to 17 through five matches.
That’s their highest total after five games since 2017-18 (also 17), when Barcelona won the league title.
You have to go back over 10 years (to 2013-14) to find the last time Barcelona scored more goals in their first five games of a campaign – 18 in that case. If you ignore the Messi era, the last time came all the way back in 1950-1951, when they scored 23 goals in their first five.
Across Europe’s top five leagues, Barcelona lead the way for total goals, one ahead of PSG (16) and four ahead of Celta Vigo in third. Expand that search to Europe’s top 10 leagues and PSV lead the way (20) followed closely by Sporting CP (19). Both of those sides are unsurprisingly 5/5 to start their seasons.
All hail Hansi Flick, then.
VIZ – The Return of the Long-Range Screamer?
The Premier League returned with a bang this week. Bang as in long-range bangers.
As well as both of Newcastle’s goals, Jhon Durán struck late from distance to complete Aston Villa’s turnaround against Everton, Marcus Rashford finally got off the mark for Manchester United, and Callum Hudson-Odoi scored Nottingham Forest’s winner at Anfield from range. All were scored from outside the area.
It begs the question: is the howitzer/screamer/thunderbolt seeing a renaissance?
Those long-range strikes took the total goals scored from outside the box to 18 this season.
With 40 games completed in the Premier League, we’re basically seeing a goal scored from outside the box every other game (0.45 per game). That’s the most frequent ratio since the 2013-14 season, which saw 186 goals scored from outside the box (0.49 per game).
This season, 16.9% of the Premier League’s goals have come from outside the box. Again, that’s the most since 2013-14 (17.7%). The highest proportion of goals scored from outside the box in history came back in 2006-07, when 20.2% of all goals scored came from range. Heritage stuff.
As Jamie Redknapp would say, put that in your xG pipe and smoke it. (Please don’t actually do that).
QUIZ – The Chaaaaampions
The Champions League returns this week, and we’ve got five trivia questions to see how much you know about it. Answers at the bottom of the page.
1. Kylian Mbappé has scored 48 Champions League goals. He’s two behind the all-time record for a male French player in the competition. Who holds that record?
2. Which player has the most assists in Champions League history (since 1992-93)?
3. Aston Villa will be the sixth different team Unai Emery has managed in the Champions League. How many of his previous five can you guess?
4. Which side has played the most games (197) in the competition’s history without ever winning the trophy?
5. There are five different teams making their debut in the Champions League this season. Name them.
Ask Opta
This week’s question comes from Wayne Miller, who asks: “With the new Champions League format introduced this season, I wondered who your model has as favourites for the competition?”
Do you have a stats-based football question you want to Ask Opta? If so, send it to editors@theanalyst.com and we’ll do our best to provide you with the answer in a future edition of SVQ.
Answer:
Well, it might be a brand-new format, but the Opta supercomputer is still backing its old favourites – Manchester City – to win Europe’s Premier competition. The model gives them a 25.3% chance of winning the competition for a second time after their triumph in 2023.
The team likeliest to stop the English champions are holders Real Madrid (18.2%), who eliminated Man City last season and have reached at least the semi-finals for four straight years.
Italian champions Internazionale (10.9%), runners-up to Man City in 2023, are the only other team who have a chance greater than 10% chance, according to the supercomputer.
What Are We Up to at Opta Analyst?
Here’s some of our latest data-driven offerings:
Quiz Answers
1. Thierry Henry (50).
2. Ryan Giggs. All 41 of his assists came for Manchester United. He assisted 22 different teammates in that time, with Wayne Rooney (6) being the one he set up most often.
3. Emery also had spells with Valencia, Spartak Moscow, Sevilla, Paris Saint-Germain and Villarreal. The only manager who’s taken charge of more than six different sides in the competition is Carlo Ancelotti (8).
4. Arsenal.
5. Aston Villa (England), Bologna (Italy), Brest (France), Girona (Spain) and Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia).
Before You Go…
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