Football
Sunaadh Sagar 305d

Messi overtakes Ronaldo with 496, ter Stegen's record-equalling 26, Reus' unfortunate 7: Stats

Bayern Munich winning the Bundesliga on the last day headlined the penultimate weekend of football in Europe's top 5 leagues. They beat Koln even as Borussia Dortmund drew with Mainz while at the other end Schalke joined Hertha Berlin in relegation and Vfb Stuttgart made the relegation/promotion playoff. In England, Everton ensured survival after a narrow win against Bournemouth as Leicester City and Leeds United were relegated. Aston Villa's win over Brighton also saw them pip Tottenham Hotspur to a Europa Conference League slot.

A draw with Strasbourg was enough for PSG to seal the Ligue 1 title with one game to go, but the race for the Europa League and ECL slots remain tight with Lille, Rennes, Monaco separated by just one point (and Lyon are just three points behind). The same is the case in Serie A where losses for Atalanta, Roma and Juventus mean the battle for 5th and 6th spot is still tight, while at the other end, Verona and Spezia are tied on 31 points at 18th and 17th going into the last day. In Spain, LaLiga's title race may have ended a while back but the race to avoid relegation is seriously tight - six teams separated by two points will battle to avoid finishing 18th on the last weekend

ESPN's By The Numbers has the best stats:

PREMIER LEAGUE

36-30

Erling Haaland won the Premier League Golden Boot with 36 goals while Harry Kane finished second with 30 goals. In the 38-game era, which began in 1995-96, only twice has a player with 30 goals or more finished as a runner-up - Kane owns both those honors, also scoring 30 goals in the 2017-18 season, 2 shy of Mohamed Salah's 32.

2

Leicester City became only the second team to be relegated in the Prem era having previously won the title (2015-16), after Blackburn (won title in 1994-95, relegated in 1998-99 and 2011-12).

70

Everton will compete in the English top-flight league for the 70th consecutive season (only Arsenal have a longer such streak with 98 consecutive seasons).

1

Luton Town's victory in the Championship play-off final saw them earn promotion to England's top-flight for the first time since 1991-92. The club were in the National League in 2014, and reaching the Premier League in ten years is the joint-fastest a team has gone from the fifth tier to the top tier, along with Wimbledon between 1977 and 1986.

1073

Abdoulaye Doucoure's goal which saved Everton was the 1073rd goal in the 2022-23 Premier League season - the highest of any 20-team season in the competition.

1

David de Gea saved his first penalty at Old Trafford since Oct. 2014 vs Everton.

44

Chelsea finished with their lowest points tally in a season (44) since 1987-88 (42 points and they were relegated).

297

Granit Xhaka scored his first-ever brace for Arsenal in his 297th (and potentially last) game for the club. His tally of nine goals for the season is five more than his previous best.

LALIGA

4

Real Madrid's win over Sevilla made it four LaLiga wins in a row at the Estadio Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan - they've only managed such a streak once before in their history, between 1994 and 1996.

133

Toni Kroos attempted the most passes of any player in LaLiga this season against Sevilla (133), and completed 124 of those (93%).

2

Ansu Fati scored the second-fastest Barcelona goal at the Camp Nou in the 21st century (49 seconds), just six seconds shy of the 43 seconds it took Andres Iniesta to score against Recreativo de Huelva in April 2009.

26

Barcelona and Marc-Andre ter Stegen equalled LaLiga's record of 26 clean sheets, first set by Francisco Liano Fernandez for Deportivo la Coruna in 1993-94.

19

RCD Espanyol confirmed their relegation from LaLiga, finishing 19th. Their 87 seasons in Spain's top-flight were bettered only by Athletic, Barcelona, Real Madrid (92) and Valencia (88).

6

With Elche and Espanyol relegated, the final relegation spot will come down to one of the following 6 teams on the final matchday of the season: Cádiz, Getafe, Valencia, Almería, Celta Vigo, Valladolid - separated by two points.

28

Antoine Griezmann's tally of 28 goal involvements in LaLiga (15G, 13A) is the best of his career - tied with his output in the 2017/18 season, after which he finished third in the Ballon d'Or rankings.

Bundesliga

11

Bayern Munich won their 11th straight Bundesliga title (33rd overall), extending their record among teams from Europe's top 5 leagues and are tied for the 5th-longest streak of league titles in UEFA history. Thomas Muller and Manuel Neuer are the only two players to have featured in every one of those eleven seasons.

2

Thomas Tuchel is only the second-ever manager to take over in the latter half of the season and win the Bundesliga. The only other instance in league history happened with Bayern too, after Franz Beckenbauer took over from Erich Ribbeck and won the 1993-94 title.

2

Jamal Musiala's winner in the 89th minute was only the second time in his Bundesliga career that he'd scored after 85 minutes (the first coming in October 2020). Musiala's goal was also the latest game-winning goal on the final match day of the Bundesliga season since 2013-14 (Claudio Pizarro vs Stuttgart 91:34)

22

The league leaders after 33 matchdays in the Bundesliga ended up as champions for the last 22 seasons prior to this one. Bayern Munich did to Bayer Leverkusen what they did to Dortmund this year, overtaking them in 1999-2000 season on the final matchday.

7

Marco Reus has finished runner-up in the Bundesliga seven times in his career. He has never won the league title.

4.16

Dortmund had an Expected Goals of 4.16, the team's 3rd highest of the season. This was also the highest xG of any team that failed to win in the Bundesliga this season.

16

Christopher Nkunku and Niclas Fullkrug finished as joint top-scorers of the Bundesliga with 16 goals, the lowest such tally in league history. It is also the first time in 20 years that two players have finished as joint top-scorers (Giovane Ember and Thomas Christiansen in 2002-03)

1

Union Berlin clinched a spot in the UEFA Champions League for the first time in their history. They became 15th different Bundesliga team to qualify to the UCL - with Germany having the greatest number of UCL clubs, leading Spain (13).

SERIE A

13

AC Milan celebrated qualification for the UEFA Champions League by doing the double over Juventus for the first time since 2009/10, 13 seasons ago. It is also only the third time they have done so in the last 50 years (1990/91 as well).

20+

autaro Martinez scored 20+ goals in each of the last two Serie A seasons, joining Erling Haaland, Robert Lewandowski and Kylian Mbappe as the only strikers with such a tally in Europe's Top 5 Leagues.

LIGUE 1

11

PSG overtook Saint-Etienne as the most successful Ligue 1 team of all time with their 11th league title. Saint-Etienne's ten titles were all won between 1957 and 1981.

This was PSG's 9th league title in the last eleven seasons. Prior to 2012-13, PSG's last French league championship was in 1993-94.

MESSI-RONALDO WATCH

A tough week for Cristiano Ronaldo, who not only had to watch Al Nassr finish second in the Saudi Pro League to Al Ittihad (Al Nassr were eight points clear when Ronaldo joined), but also witnessed Lionel Messi become the most decorated player ever and break a goalscoring record of his.

496

Lionel Messi overtook Cristiano Ronaldo's record of 495 goals scored in Europe's Top 5 leagues with his 496th goal in PSG's title-winning draw against Strasbourg.

43

Messi also won the 43rd trophy of his career. He is now level with Dani Alves as the most decorated player in modern football.

(Stats courtesy: ESPN Stats and Information Group)

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