Stat of the Day: Messi 101!

Lionel Messi has scored 101 goals at the Camp Nou. I could leave it at that but I won’t.
Remember all the football pundits who claimed that Messi was going to be worn out from his Copa America exertions over the summer? I think we can safely say that the Argentine has put those questions to bed: four games; six goals. In fact, the two goals he scored against Villarreal on Monday took his home tally to 101 since his debut season in 2004/05. FC Barcelona’s official website broke down the scoring like this:

• 11/12 season; 2 League, 3 Spanish Super Cup and 1 European Super Cup
• 10/11; 15 League, 6 Champions League, 6 Spanish Cup and 3 European Super Cup
• 09/10; 16 League, 7 Champions League, 1 Spanish Cup and 2 Spanish Super Cup
• 08/09; 8 League, 4 Champions League and 1 Spanish Cup
• 07/08; 9 League and 2 Champions League
• 06/07; 8 League and 2 Spanish Cup
• 05/06; 4 League, 1 Champions League and 1 Spanish Cup
• 04/05; 1 League

Messi’s first goal came in 2005 in a Liga match against Albacete, but many many memorable strikes have since followed. Which one is your personal favorite?

Stat of the day: Barcelona’s iron grip on ball possession

Statistics master Alexis [aka @MisterChip], spent some serious time looking at the way Real Madrid and Barcelona worked to keep the ball in Sunday’s first-leg SuperCopa encounter. By the end of the match, Barcelona emerged with 51.79% compared with 48.21 for the Merengues. To break this down even further: during the full 94 minutes and 32 seconds of time in the match, there were 50 minutes and 53 seconds of open play in which possession of the ball could be contested. Out of this time period, Barcelona held the ball 1 minute and 49 seconds longer than Madrid, and eeked out the majority of the possession for the match.

To look at the bigger picture, this match represented the 184th consecutive official encounter in which the Blaugrana emerged with superior ball possession. That’s a lot of matches!

Stat of the day: One more Classico victory, please!

Neither Barcelona nor Madrid have ever played five consecutive away Classicos without a loss. If Barcelona avoid defeat on Sunday, they will break this record: they have either beaten or drawn with Madrid in their four previous matches in the Bernabéu.