Champions League setting new scoring records
Monday, November 24, 2014
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This season's UEFA Champions League has featured 2.98 goals per game on average so far, a trend that would set a new record if maintained for the rest of the campaign.
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As we enter matchday five with so much of the UEFA Champions League still to play for, we have already seen 64 of the 125 games that comprise this season's competition proper.
One of the standout observations from this season has already been the high number of goals scored, the pinnacle coming on matchday three when an impressive 59 were registered – the highest matchday total since the competition returned to the one group stage format.
FC Bayern München's 7-1 victory in Italy against AS Roma, coupled with FC Shakhtar Donetsk's impressive 7-0 victory over FC BATE Borisov the same night, led the way to break the record. The previous highest came in 2012/13 on matchday four, when 58 goals were scored.
Forty of those 59 goals came on the Tuesday night with only 19 on the Wednesday. We explored the numbers to analyse whether there was a notable difference between goals on either day. There proved to be little of any statistical significance, with 1,499 goals scored on Tuesdays compared to 1,492 on Wednesdays.
We took our analysis a step further to break down whether individual matchdays were traditionally high scoring and how this season compared to the historical averages.
The 2014/15 season has beaten the matchday average for goals on three of the first four games, with only matchday two being lower this season. The matchday three total of 59 goals this season easily surpassed the average of 43 since 2003/04.
The trend in recent seasons has seen a steady rise each year and, based on the four matchdays so far this season, that looks set to continue. This season already shows a 2.98 average which would be the highest total if maintained over the entire campaign.
UEFA Chief Technical Officer Ioan Lupescu said: "At the moment, positive and attacking football is in fashion. This is reflected in the high number of goals that we have seen in general over the past few seasons and on matchdays three and four in particular this year."