Arda Turan and Jérémy Mathieu feature in our look at the most interesting facts and figures surrounding the game
FC Barcelona’s 5–1 win over Rayo Vallecano on Thursday night was one that, once again, produced a bevy of statistics that are as curious as they are eye-popping.
Barça’s French defender, Jérémy Mathieu, having started 21 of his 28 games played in his two seasons with the club, has now played every minute of the team’s last four La Liga games. On Thursday night, Mathieu was involved in 23 passing combinations with both Andrés Iniesta and Neymar Jr. The graphic below illustrates Mathieu’s passing distribution, including his assist to Arda Turan for the final goal of the game in the 85th minute.
Turan’s goal was his first in his 13th game this season, making him the first Turk to ever score for Barça and making Turkey the 42nd country ever to produce a Barça goal scorer.
All five of FC Barcelona’s goals came from within the Rayo penalty area — Rakitic pounced on a Juan Carlos error, Messi was lethal from close range and Arda headed in a cross from the doorstep.
Besides setting a new record with 35 consecutive games unbeaten, Barça also got their third five-goal game of the season after a 5–4 win over Sevilla in the UEFA Super Cup and, interestingly, versus Rayo at Camp Rayo in their first meeting this season. But it hasn’t stopped there, because Barça have scored an astonishing six or more goals in five other games.
Lionel Messi, inconceivably, just keeps getting better. Against Rayo, he bagged his 30th career hat trick (his 35th if you count games in which he score more than three goals), his 19th league goal of the season, and his 20th in 2016 — the best start to a calendar year in his career.
Almost as unbelievably, Luis Suárez did not score on Thursday, although he still leads the league with 25 goals. Suárez took six shots, three of which were on goal. One of those even hit the post and caromed out to Messi, who then scored. Suárez also took a penalty kick that Juan Carlos miraculously saved. Check out this video of Suárez warming up before the match.
Luis Suárez, warm up skills por fcbarcelona