In FIFA.com’s latest weekly stats review, milestones for Claudio Pizarro and Fernando Torres feature alongside three very different records for Paris Saint-Germain, Jiangsu Suning and Victor Wanyama.
400
Bundesliga appearances was a landmark that had never been reached by a foreigner until Claudio Pizarro made history on Friday. The 37-year-old also marked the occasion with a goal, continuing a wonderful run of form that has seen him find the net six times in his last five outings. This scoring streak has also taken the Peruvian up another notch in the Bundesliga’s list of all-time leading marksmen, where he now sits in joint-fifth with Ulf Kirtsen on 182. Pizarro, though, wasn’t the only foreigner climbing a historical table, with Klass-Jan Huntelaar becoming the second-highest scorer in Schalke’s history. The Dutchman scored his 74th goal for the club in Saturday’s 3-0 win over Wolfsburg to move past Ebbe Sand in the all-time standings. He can forget, though, claiming the club record, with Klaus Fischer’s haul of 182 goals sure to set the Schalke standard for many years to come.
258.9
million euros is the combined outlay that has made Chinese Super League clubs the biggest spenders of 2016’s first transfer window. Even the English Premier League, where clubs shelled out a total of €243.7m, was left behind as a clutch of elite players were lured east. So unprecedented was the spending in China PR that the Asian transfer record was broken three times in the space of just ten days. Ramires was the first to break it when he left Chelsea for Jiangsu Suning in a €28m deal, but that was surpassed a week later when Guangzhou Evergrande paid €42m to prise Jackson Martinez from Atletico Madrid. The biggest deal, though, came last Thursday when Jiangsu parted with a cool €50m to sign another Brazilian in Alex Teixeira. The Shakhtar Donetsk star – a five-time title winner in Ukraine - had become one of the world’s most sought-after players, having scored 22 times in 15 league appearances this season alone.
100
Atletico Madrid goals was the milestone reached by Fernando Torres in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Eibar. There was relief as well as joy for the former Chelsea striker, who had been on a 19-match goalless run – the second-worst sequence of his career – since scoring his 99th against the same opposition back in September. Hitting the century-mark also took Torres into the club’s top ten all-time goalscorers, drawing him level with a certain Sergio Aguero on this table. Luis Enrique, meanwhile, celebrated a century of his own, overseeing his 100th match as Barcelona coach as the champions won 2-0 at Levante. It was the Catalans’ tenth successive win and extended their unbeaten run to 28 matches, equalling a club record from 2010/11 that they can eclipse by avoiding defeat at Valencia this evening.
34
matches without defeat is the new all-time French Ligue 1 record set by Paris Saint-Germain over the past week. France’s champions-elect claimed the record last Wednesday with a 3-1 win over Lorient, surpassing Nantes’ 1994/95 benchmark, before extending their remarkable run with a 2-1 victory at Marseille on Sunday. The latter encounter saw Zlatan Ibrahimovic score the fastest Classique goal in over three decades, with his second-minute effort the earliest seen in this fixture since Luis Fernandez found the net inside the opening 60 seconds in 1985. Marseille made life tough for their old rivals, but are now on a miserable run of seven straight defeats against PSG. More worryingly, they have not won any of their last ten home matches in Ligue 1 – the longest such sequence in the club’s history.
3
red cards in the 2015/16 season have seen Southampton’s Victor Wanyama equal a Premier League record. The Kenyan midfielder earned his marching orders once again in Saturday’s hard-fought 1-0 win over West Ham United and, in doing so, became the first player since Wes Brown in 2013/14 to be dismissed three times in a single campaign. Southampton continue to prosper though, thanks largely to the shutouts of Fraser Forster. The former Celtic goalkeeper has been in outstanding form since returning from long-term injury, keeping five clean sheets in as many appearances to stretch to seven-and-a-half hours his team’s run of not conceding. Elsewhere in England, Romelu Lukaku equalled a club record at Everton, with his 16th goal of 2015/16 matching the single-season Premier League benchmark set by Tony Cottee in 1993/94. Team-mate Aaron Lennon is also in the scoring form of his life, having found the net in three successive competitive appearances for the first time in his career.