Octaves of madness! The 68 goals scored are close to the historical record of almost 70 years ago

Barcelona’s seven-to-two win over Newcastle has become another scoring milestone for the Blaugranas in the Champions League. The third in its history. The previous ones were in 2012 and 2016, with Messi in full effervescence.

The first of them, that of 2012, represents the starting point in terms of the culés’ particular scoring success (considering that the Argentine star scored five of the seven goals against Leverkusen); but if we stop at the recently concluded round of 16 phase of the Champions League, the victory at the Camp Nou It joins one of the qualifying rounds with the most goals in the history of the competition.

A total of 68 goals were scored in this first qualifying round that put the best 16 teams in the Old Continent into contention. The best of the modern era and in the Top 3 of the Champions League ranking. In fact, we have to go back to the first (71) y to the fifth edition (74) to find two moments with more targets materialized.

He 8-2 global del PSG al Chelsea; el 8-3 del Barcelona al Newcastle; Atleti’s 7-5 to Tottenham; the 10-2 of Bayern against Atalanta… Or even 5-1 of Real Madrid and City or the 4-1 from Liverpool to Galatasaray or Sporting CP’s 5-3 defeat to Bodo highlight an aspect that could well generate debate: Has we returned to the times when there was so much inequality between the teams that participated in the European Cup or, in reality, the teams are better and competitiveness has grown?

Messi and Bayern

If we stop at the round of 16 in the history of the Champions League, there are two names that stand out above average. At the individual level, Leo Messi; At a collective and team level, the Bayern Munich.

The Argentine star scored a total of 29 goals in the round of 16, 22.5% of the goals he scored in the Champions League (129). The second, of course, is Cristiano Ronaldo with 25, although he is still the competition’s top scorer with 140 goals. The third in contention is none other than Robert Lewandowski, who with the two against Newcastle reaches 19 goals out of a total of 107.

The attacker with the best percentage in this phase is Thomar Müller with 15 goals of the 57 (26.3%) he scored with Bayern Munich, coincidentally, the club with the best numbers in the first knockout round of the Champions League.

He Bayern Munich He has a total of 104 goals in the round of 16, 24.2% of the 438 goals he has scored in his history. Barcelona follows with 83 goals out of 415 (20%). The third, Real Madrid. The competition’s top scorer (504 goals) has 73 in the round of 16, 14.5%.

From here, it is worth asking how much of a key the ‘offensive gales’ and then lift the Orejona at the end of the season. What do you think?

Two reasonably recent editions serve to illustrate the issue at hand, the biggest wins in a round of 16 match were carried out by the Bayern (7-0 against Basel in 2012 and Shakhtar in 2015, but was eliminated in the semifinals by Real Madrid and Barcelona, ​​respectively); the City to Schalke and Leipzig for the same result in 2019 or 2023); he Barcelonawith the aforementioned 7-1 defeat of Leverkusen in 2012; or also, if you want, the 6-0 that Real Madrid beat Schalke in 2014.

Of all of them, only Manchester City and Real Madrid lThey managed to lift the Champions League in 2023 (the first and only one for the cityzens) and in 2014 (the tenth for the whites.