In FIFA.com’s latest stats review, landmark trebles for Nikola Kalinic and Alexis Sanchez jostle for position alongside Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s scoring streak, Malaga’s goal drought and a historic title in Liberia.
82 years after the last Fiorentina hat-trick at Inter Milan, Nikola Kalinic stunned the San Siro and ended I Nerazzurri’s unblemished start to the season. As well as becoming the first Viola player to score a treble away to Inter since Vinicio Viani in 1933, Kalinic became the first Croatian to achieve the feat in any Italian Serie A match since Alen Boksic for Lazio in January 1995. His goals propelled Fiorentina to a 4-1 win and elevated them to the top of Serie A for the first time since February 1999 – 503 matchdays ago. And while the big guns continue to falter, with Inter, AC Milan and Juventus all losing in the same round of fixtures for the first time in 21 years, the only team still to taste defeat are little Sassuolo. The Modena outfit are unbeaten in six league matches this season and boast a run of 12 games without a loss in all competitions.
59 years of the Liberian National League produced a first on Sunday: a champion from outside Monrovia. Nimba United are the team that succeeded in wresting the title away from the capital, beating LISCR 3-2 on penalties after the two-legged championship play-off failed to produce a single goal in 210 minutes of football. The Sanniquellie outfit, nicknamed ‘the Mountaineers’, are now the toast of a nation that had previously crowned nine different champions – all from Monrovia. As for the national FA Cup, it went to the reserve team of dethroned champions Barrack Young Controllers – the second time this second string side have won the trophy in the past three years.
7 Borussia Dortmund league matches this season have all had one feature in common: at least one Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang goal. In finding the net in each one of his team’s German Bundesliga matches thus far, the Gabonese striker has set a new record in Germany’s top flight, with no-one having previously maintained a scoring streak beyond the fifth game of a new campaign. Aubameyang’s total haul from those games stands at nine and, in the history of the Bundesliga, only two players have scored more at this stage of a season, with Gerd Muller having done it twice (1968/69 and 1977/78). The other man in question is Robert Lewandowski, who has managed to outscore his Dortmund successor by finding the net ten times in his first seven appearances this season. After his five-goal flurry last Tuesday, the Polish striker claimed his 100th and 101st Bundesliga strikes in Bayern Munich’s 3-0 win at Mainz on Saturday, and has reached this century in just 168 appearances – a record tally for a non-German.
6 games played, zero goals scored is the statistic that has earned Malaga a new and undesirable Spanish La Liga record. In failing to find the net in 540 minutes of action since the start of the season, Javi Gracia’s side have eclipsed the previous benchmark of 497 minutes set by Xerez in 2009/10. They are also the only side in the top five European leagues still to get off the mark this season. If there is one crumb of comfort for Malaga, it is that their defence is functioning a great deal more successfully than their attack. Indeed, their six matches have produced a meagre three goals in total, with Real Madrid the latest opponents kept out. Emerging from the Bernabeu with a clean sheet was particularly impressive as Madrid had scored in every one of their previous 56 matches there. The result knocked Los Merengues off the top of the table, where they were replaced by a Villarreal side scaling the summit for the first time in the club’s 92-year history.
3 goals against Leicester City on Saturday saw Alexis Sanchez become the first player to score hat-tricks in the English, Spanish and Italian top flights. Having already claimed trebles for Barcelona and Udinese, Sanchez added the first of his Arsenal career and became the first Chilean and eighth South American hat-trick scorer in Premier League history. It also ended a frustrating wait for the 26-year-old, who was without a goal in 2015/16, having failed to score with any of his previous 53 shots in league action. Another drought was cut short across north London, where Harry Kane ended a run of 12 hours and 28 minutes without a Tottenham Hotspur goal by finding the net in the 4-1 win over Manchester City. That shock result ranked as City’s heaviest defeat in the Premier League since Sheikh Mansour bought the club seven years ago.
