Europa League matchday three statistics
Friday, October 23, 2015
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Sporting and Napoli's Gonzalo Higuaín have new strings to their bow after Thursday night's games, as UEFA.com tots up the key matchday three figures.
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• Sporting's 5-1 win at home to Skënderbeu enabled them to join compatriots Porto as the only two clubs to have scored five goals in a UEFA Europa League game on three occasions.
• Skënderbeu's defeat was their third in three matchdays. The Albanian team are the only one of the eight newcomers to this season's UEFA Europa League group stage yet to record a point. Augsburg got off the mark with their 1-0 victory at AZ Alkmaar while Groningen's late equaliser earned them a 1-1 draw at Slovan Liberec.
• Conversely, Sion are the only one of the 2015/16 competition debutants still to suffer a defeat. The Swiss side are top of their group with seven points following their 1-0 success at Bordeaux.
• Another newcomer, Midtjylland, lost their 100% record in the UEFA Europa League proper as they were brought back to earth with a bump by Napoli, who beat them 4-1 in Denmark.
• Napoli (Group D) are one of just three teams with a maximum haul of nine points from their opening three matches, the others being Rapid Wien (E) and Braga (F).
• Gonzalo Higuaín's goal that capped Napoli's win at Midtjylland was the Argentina forward's tenth in the UEFA Europa League, making him the 23rd player to reach double figures. The top scorer in the all-time standings active in this term's tournament is Giuseppe Rossi, who hit his 16th goal in Fiorentina's home reverse to Lech Poznań.
• While Daniel Carriço heads the UEFA Europa League all-time appearance charts, on 48 games, the goalkeeper with the most participations is his former Sporting team-mate Rui Patrício, who made his 35th outing in the competition – all with Sporting – in the Lisbon club's 5-1 thrashing of Skënderbeu.
• Only three players have featured more often in the competition for one club than Rui Patrício – Andriy Yarmolenko (38 for Dynamo Kyiv), Óscar Cardozo (36 for Benfica) and Ola Toivonen (36 for PSV Eindhoven). Cardozo also holds the record for the most UEFA Europa League goals for a single club (20 for Benfica).
• PAOK's goalless stalemate at home to Krasnodar set a new competition record as the Greek side posted their 14th draw (from 33 matches). They are now one ahead of five other clubs – Tottenham, Lazio, PSV, Rubin Kazan and Club Brugge, the latter two having moved onto 13 on matchday three with respective draws at Liverpool and Legia Warszawa.
• The eight goals scored collectively by Lazio, Fiorentina and Napoli on matchday three, compared with the aggregate of six registered by Borussia Dortmund, Schalke and Augsburg, means that Italy have now outscored Germany in the all-time tally of UEFA Europa League goals – 287 to 285. Both nations are, however, well adrift of table-topping Spain, whose teams have struck 334 times.
• Lazio overcame Rosenborg 3-1 in Rome despite the sending-off of Brazilian defender Maurício after six minutes and 25 seconds. That goes down as the fourth-fastest red card in UEFA Europa League history. The quickest also took place on Italian soil, in March 2012, when AZ Alkmaar's Nick Viergever was expelled against Udinese after just three minutes and 14 seconds.
• Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's hat-trick for Borussia Dortmund at Qäbälä was the 37th in the competition but only the 11th to be scored away from home. It was also the first in the UEFA Europa League by a Dortmund player.