A smashing weekend of football saw quite a bit of action. Lionel Messi wreaked havoc as Barcelona swatted Alaves aside 5-1. Real Madrid won too, but so did Atletico and the latter remain firmly in control of the league. Cristiano Ronaldo had a quiet night as Juventus were beaten 1-0 at Napoli, but the shock of the weekend came further north, where Spezia outplayed AC Milan for a 2-0 win, which saw Inter going top after beating Lazio 3-1. Over in England, Manchester City dismissed Tottenham Hotspur 3-0, Arsenal out-attacked Leeds 4-2, Liverpool imploded at Leicester and West Bromwich Albion held an insipid Manchester United to a draw. Oh, Bayern Munich are champions of the world, they beat Tigres 1-0 in the Club World Cup final late on Thursday night.
And all that adds up to some quite interesting numbers --
Premier League
3
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is the third player in PL history to score a hat-trick on Valentine's Day after Matt Le Tissier vs. Liverpool in 1994 and Michael Owen vs. Sheffield Wednesday in 1998.
3
A not-so-pleasant three up next -- Liverpool have lost three consecutive PL games for the first time since November 2014, when managed by current Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers.
15
Manchester City are on quite the run. Just how good has it been? They haven't trailed for a single minute in any of their last 15 PL games - in the competition's history, only Arsenal have embarked on a longer run of successive games without going behind (a run of 19 matches between December 1998 - May 1999).
38
Since his PL debut for Manchester United in February 2020, only Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski (both 44) have been directly involved in more goals in Europe's big-five leagues than Bruno Fernandes (38 - 22 goals, 16 assists).
46 and 73
How's this for (almost) coincidence? Sunday, 14 Feb 2020 was Fulham's first win at Goodison Park since 15 Feb 1975 (almost 46 years ago to the day). Their first win at Goodison Park? It came on February 14, 1948 exactly 73 years ago!
50
The win over Tottenham Hotspur was Phil Foden's 50th PL win, in what was just his 59th appearance. This has equaled the record for fewest games needed to reach this milestone in the competition's history (along with Aymeric Laporte, also 59 games).
Serie A
1
Before Spezia's win over Milan, the last newly-promoted side to have won in Serie A against a team on the top of the table at the beginning of a matchday was Verona against Juventus, 2-1 just one year ago (February 2020).
10/10
Romelu Lukaku has scored all of the 10 penalties he has taken in Serie A over the last two seasons: no player has more penalties goals with 100% accuracy in this period in the top-5 European Leagues.
11
Next Sunday's Milan derby will be the first time in eleven years (last, 24 Jan 2010) that both teams will occupy the top two positions in Serie A going into their second and final league meeting of the season.
20
With his assist on Lautaro Martínez's goal, Lukaku now has 20 goal contributions in Serie A this season (16 goals and 4 assists) and he moves ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo (19) for most in the league.
300
More Romelu Lukaku goodness. The Belgian has now scored 300 goals for his clubs and country (87 Everton, 57 Belgium, 56 Inter Milan, 42 Manchester United, 41 Anderlecht, 17 West Bromwich Albion).
500
Samir Handanovic played his 500th Serie A game on Sunday -- he is the 15th player to reach this milestone and only the second foreign player, after Inter legend Javier Zanetti.
La Liga
21
Atletico Madrid now lead La Liga with 54 points (21 games played), eight ahead of Real Madrid and Barcelona, each of whom has played 22 games. Since 1995-96, when La Liga began awarding 3 points per win, no team has ever failed to win the league title after being at least 5 points clear at the top of the table in their first 21 games played.
50
Just how underrated is Toni Kroos? The German is the first player to create 50 chances in La Liga this season. And he is doing it all at a scarcely believable pass accuracy of 94%.
Club World Cup
2/6
Bayern Munich is the second European club to win and hold all 6 available major titles at the same time (FIFA Club World Cup, UEFA CL, UEFA SC, Domestic League, Domestic Cup, Domestic SC) after the 2009 Barcelona vintage.
This was their second FIFA Club World Cup title and first since 2013 -- Manuel Neuer, David Alaba, Jerome Boateng and Thomas Müller played for both teams.
6/5
This is a truly remarkable number. Bayern head coach Hansi Flick's record reads 58 Wins, 5 Draws, 5 Losses in 68 games with the club. In other words, he has more titles won (6) than he has matches lost (5).
Messi-Ronaldo watch
Cristiano Ronaldo had a quiet night, Lionel Messi not so much.
4 vs. 2
The most number of games with 2+ goals from outside the box in the last 3 La Liga seasons - Lionel Messi, 4. The rest of La Liga, 2. #JustMessiThings.
505
Lionel Messi has tied Xavi (505) for most La Liga appearances ever by a Barcelona player. This also means he's gotten into the top-10 in games played in league history. Next on the list are Sergio Ramos (507) and Iker Casillas (510).
(Stats courtesy ESPN's Stats & Information Group)