The too frequent and intrusive international breaks are a part of every soccer season. They break the club season’s norm and seem to be eager to win some ACLs this time around as well. Even Arsene Wenger, the head of FIFA, thinks there are too many breaks, but we still continue to employ them.
There are only essentially two benefits to the schedule’s regular breaks that I can really see: They’re offering me with the chance to play in the stat sandbox and ask some questions I’ve been meaning to ask for a while, and I love that they offer more opportunities for first-time call-ups.
To what extent are Harry Kane’s current scoring rates absurd? What can we learn about player value from intriguing data like xPV? This season, who has been especially fortunate or unfortunate? Who has been especially severely bitten by the injury bug? And as promised, are games this season actually longer?
So think of this as a sort of grab bag: five little articles covering subjects or figures I’ve been meaning to look into for a long.
This is ridiculous. Kane, Harry
These players have averaged at least 1.5 goals and 1.5 assists per 90 minutes (a minimum 1,500 minutes) in one of Europe’s five major leagues during 2010 and 2011:
Lionel Messi (a maximum of five times, 1.97).
Cristiano Ronaldo (a triad, max 1.86 times)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (2016–15, 1.80)
Lewandowski, Robert (2020–21, 1.75).
Neymar (1.70- 18, 2017–18)
Luis Suárez (1.60, 2015–16)
Kylian Mbappé (1.84) (2018–19)
Higuain Gonzalo (2011–12, 1.52)
Gareth Bale (1.50%, 2015–16)
Although it’s not an exact list, it’s close to the best athletes in football of the last decade or so.
The aforementioned players have averaged 2.0 goals and assists in 90 games:
Harry Kane (2.06), 2023–24