A detailed examination of the longest run of consecutive matches without defeat in the history of Spanish football, which finally came to an end on Saturday night
As the saying goes, all good things come to an end. So it was that FC Barcelona’s amazing unbeaten run was finally halted by Real Madrid’s 2-1 victory in Saturday’s Clásico. It was the first time Barça had lost a match in any competition since going down to Sevilla on October 3, a streak of 39 consecutive games without losing.
Those six memorable months amount to the longest undefeated run in Spanish football history and have left the Catalans six points clear at the top of La Liga, as well as being through to the Champions League quarter finals and the Copa del Rey Final.
Here’s a detailed look at the remarkable feat that Luis Enrique’s team have achieved:
The run included 32 wins and 7 draws against 26 different teams and in four separate competitions.
Broken down by competitions: 19 wins and 4 draws in La Liga, 5 wins and 1 draw in the Champions League, 6 wins and 2 draws in the Copa del Rey and 2 wins in the Club World Cup.
Espanyol and Athletic Bilbao have both featured three times in the run, twice in the cup and once in the league. Barça won five of those encounters and it’s against the Basques that they scored most goals, 11 in the three meetings.
Altogether, Barça scored 122 goals in the 39 matches and conceded just 23, a humungous +99 difference.
The trident of Suárez, Messi and Neymar Jr scored 90 of those goals: 37 for the Uruguayan, 31 for the Argentinian and 22 for the Brazilian. That’s 73% of the team total.
The remaining 27% were scored by nine different players: Rakitic and Munir (7), Piqué (5), Sandro (3), Arda (2) and Adriano, Alves, Kaptoum and Iniesta (1).
Eighteen of the 32 wins were by three goals or more, including the famous 4-0 victory at the Bernabéu, the 6-1 trouncing of AS Roma and the staggering 7-0 demolition of Valencia in the Copa del Rey semi-final.
As for assists, the famous trident again features prominently, with 45 between them. Neymar Jr leads the way with 18; Suárez is second with 14 and Messi provided 13.
The record at the Camp Nou was slightly better than that on the road. Barça won 18 and drew 2 at home, while winning 14 and drawing 5 when playing elsewhere.