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          Vinicius' 18, Mbappe's 45 and Bayer Leverkusen's 36: Stats

          (Photo by Alberto Gardin/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
          • Shyam Vasudevan
          Mar 11, 2024, 05:35 AM

          An action-packed week of footballing action came to an end with Liverpool playing out a draw with Manchester City, which meant Arsenal would climb to the top of the Premier League. Aston Villa dropped points, while Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United bagged wins to remain in the top-6.

          Over in Spain, Real Madrid bounced back to winning ways to consolidate their lead at the top while Barcelona rode on a fine strike from Lamine Yamal to climb to third. Inter notched up their 24th Serie A win of the season to open up a massive 16-poing lead, while Bayer Leverkusen's 36-game unbeaten run sees them retain the #1 spot in Bundesliga.

          Mid-week action saw Manchester City and Bayern Munich post comfortable wins in the Champions League, while Liverpool and AC Milan progressed in the Europa League.

          ESPN's By The Numbers has the best stats from the weekend:

          Champions League

          3

          Manchester City are the first club in European Cup/Champions League history to score at least three goals in nine straight home games, breaking a tie with 2014-16 Bayern, 1962-64 Real Madrid and 1960-62 Benfica, who had each done so in eight straight games.

          18

          Vinicius Jr's 18th career UCL goal sees him match Ronaldinho's career UCL goal tally and crack the top 10 for most UCL goals by Brazilians. He also ties with Rodrygo for fourth most UCL goals for Real Madrid.

          45

          Kylian Mbappe's 45th UCL goal makes him the 12th player in history with at least 45 goals in the tournament, just one goal shy of Filippo Inzaghi for the 11th spot on the all-time UCL top scorers list. Mbappe is also the second player in UCL history to score 45+ goals in UCL with 25 years or younger, joining Lionel Messi.

          57

          Manuel Neuer has equalled Iker Casillas's record of 57 clean sheets in the Champions League.

          Europa League

          4

          Darwin Nunez's strike against Sparta Prague marks the first time he has scored in four straight games for Liverpool across. It is also the first time he's scored multiple goals from at least 18 yards out since moving to Europe in October 2019 (all competitions).

          9

          Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang currently has the most goals across the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League this season (9).

          Premier League

          1/19

          John Stones netted his first career goal in 19 games played against Liverpool. Going into Sunday's game, Liverpool was the team Stones had played the most times in his career without scoring a goal.

          8

          Arsenal became the fourth team in Premier League history to win their first eight games of a calendar year following Man City (13 in 2021), Man United (9 in 2009) and Liverpool (8 in 2020) - all three all went on to win the PL title that season.

          9

          Alexis Mac Allister has converted nine consecutive penalty kicks in all competitions, now 2-2 for Liverpool. He's 12-of-13 in his career in all competitions for club and country.

          33

          Manchester City have not lost a Premier League game in which they scored first since January 14, 2023 at Manchester United. City are 28-5-0 when scoring first in the PL since then.

          LaLiga

          4

          Lamine Yamal's goal in the 73rd minute against Mallorca was his fourth LaLiga goal of this season - that is twice as many in a single season than any other player before turning 17 years in LaLiga history.

          8

          Savio's eight LaLiga goals this season are tied for the fourth-most by a non-Spanish teenager in the league's history. He trails only Sergio Aguero, Lionel Messi and Antonio Sanabria in this regard. He is also the only teenager in Europe's top 5 leagues with 15+ goal contributions this season (8 G, 7 A).

          9

          Predrag Rajkovic has saved nine penalties in his career in Europe's top five leagues, the most for a goalkeeper in such competitions since 2019/20 season.

          10

          Vinicius joins Ronaldo as the only Brazilian Real Madrid players with at least 10 goals in three consecutive LaLiga seasons (Ronaldo did it in four straight). He is also the sixth South American player to score at least 75 goals in all competitions for Real Madrid.

          19

          Real Madrid's Arda Guler, at 19, is the youngest Turkish player to score in LaLiga history. That distinction previously belonged to Emre Mor, who scored at 20 years old for Celta Vigo in October, 2017.

          23

          Cadiz snapped their 23-game winless streak in LaLiga by beating Atletico Madrid: this was their longest ever winless streak in the top flight.

          Serie A

          10 and 75

          Inter Milan are cruising on a 10-game winning streak in Serie A - the third longest in club history (17 in 2006-07 and 11 in 2020-21). Inter's 75 points in Serie A in 28 matches has only been exceeded by a single team in league history: Inter Milan 2006-07, under Roberto Mancini (76).

          7

          Weston McKennie has seven assists to his name across competitions in 2024, only Kevin De Bruyne (11) has more since January 1 among players in Europe's top 5 leagues.

          10

          Christian Pulisic's 10 goals in all competitions this season are his most in a single season since 11 in 2020-21, playing for Chelsea. Pulisic reached 14 goal contributions in Serie A this season, the fourth-highest total in the last 30 top 5 seasons by an American.

          Bundesliga

          1

          Jadon Sancho scored first goal since returning to Borussia Dortmund. This was Sancho's first goal for Dortmund since the 2021 DFB Pokal (German Cup) Final vs RB Leipzig. His last goal came on May 28 last year in Manchester United's last game of last PL season.

          4 [x3]

          Harry Kane's fourth Bundesliga hat trick this season puts him one shy of the record for most hat tricks in a Bundesliga season, held by Mario Gomez (2010-11) and Robert Lewandowski (2020-21). Kane is also the first player to score four hat tricks in a debut Bundesliga season.

          25

          Bayer Leverkusen's 25-game unbeaten streak to start the Bundesliga season is the second-longest in league history behind 2013-14 Bayern Munich's 28-game unbeaten start (won league title). Their 31-5-0 record in all competitions is tied for the third-longest unbeaten start by a team from Europe's top 5 leagues in the last 60 seasons.

          Ligue 1

          20

          Number of minutes Kylian Mbappe played in the Ligue 1 match against Reims. Mbappe has not played 90 minutes for PSG in Ligue 1 since February 2, having been substituted early in their past two league matches, as well as making one appearance from off the bench and spending another as an unused substitute.

          Messi-Ronaldo Watch

          3 and 9

          Cristiano Ronaldo's Al Nassr are now winless in their last three matches and are nine points behind league leaders Al Hilal, who have a game in hand.

          0 and 1

          Lionel Messi watched on from the stands as Inter Miami lost 3-2 to CF Montreal this weekend. Messi was rested after being on the receiving end of a sharp tackle in the mid-week draw against Nashville. With Messi missing, Miami slipped to their first loss of the season.

          (Stats courtesy: ESPN Stats and Information Group)