La Liga Facts

Did you know? (As of 2/25/12)

Three of the top five scorers in La Liga are Real Madrid CF players. The deadly trio of Cristiano Ronaldo (28), Gonzalo Higuain (14), and Karim Benzema (13) together have scored 70% of Real Madrid’s 79 goals so far this season.

Some fun facts:

- Out of the three, Cristiano is the only one to have scored with a header. In fact, 4 of his 28 goals were headed in.

- Higuain scores almost exclusively with his right foot. He has scored one left-footed goal so far this season.

- Twelve of Benzema’s 13 goals were scored at home. The only away goal he scored was against Valencia, Nov 19th of last year.

- Minutes the trio have played: Cristiano (2013), Higuain (960), Benzema (1351). Higuain is the player most likely to be substituted on (12 times), whereas out of the three Benzema is the most likely to be substituted off (11 times).

As of 2/19/12…

After FC Barcelona’s 5-1 thrashing of Valencia CF, there is a curious phenomenon in the league table.

Out of the 20 teams in the top flight of La Liga, 15 of them have negative goal differences, meaning they have conceded more goals than they have scored. The remaining teams have positive goal differences, but only in the single digits. There are two giant exceptions: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, who are completely dominating the entire table with goal differences of 58 and 51, respectively.

Literally, from 7th place down, every team has a negative goal difference. Even RCD Espanyol, who is occupying a Europa League spot currently, has a goal difference of -1.

[As of Jornada 21]

Today’s match was a massive win for Real Sociedad against Sporting Gijon. The final score was 5-1. Why is this extraordinary? The last time Real Sociedad scored five or more goals in the league was in December 2004, over seven years ago. 

FC Barcelona, on the other hand, has scored five or more in a match already five times in this season alone.

[Jornada 21]

Today’s match between Real Sociedad and Sporting Gijon has been quite eventful for one David Zurutuza. In less than five minutes, the midfielder has managed to score two goals and break his nose. Here’s a quick recap:

Minute 1: Zurutuza scores a goal for Real Sociedad! 1-0

Minute 2: Zurutuza scores a second goal! 2-0

Minute 4: Zurutuza’s face is smashed in by a Sporting player, Gregory. Zurutuza’s nose is broken.

Minute 6: Zurutuza is substituted out.

[As of Jornada 21]

Did you know? Fernando Llorente of Athletic Bilbao scored his first ever hat-trick in La Liga today. Fun fact? It has been five years since an Athletic Bilbao player has scored a hat-trick in an official La Liga game.

Did you know? (Looking ahead to Jornada 18 match…)

In less than an hour, the two La Liga teams with the most and least goals scored will face off against one another. Real Madrid CF has scored the most goals thus far (56), whereas Granada CF has only managed to score 10 goals this season.

In fact, Real Madrid’s top scorer, Cristiano Ronaldo, alone scored two times more than the entire team of Granada combined. Fun fact? Granada’s top scorer isn’t even a striker. He is Brazilian defender Guilherme Siqueira and he’s only scored two goals.

Did you know?

Both Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have scored 50 goals in La Liga so far. The league total is 397, so together the two teams make up roughly 25% of the entire league. The average number of goals scored by each team is about 20.

The team with the smallest number of goals scored? Granada CF, 8 goals.

Did you know? (As of Jornada 13)

As expected, the match between Valencia CF and Real Madrid CF today was an absolute nail-biter. There were a lot of fun statistics that arose from this match, but we only have time to cover a few of them…

Real Madrid wore a red kit tonight, which had previously only been seen in a rare handful of CL games. This was the first time they’d worn red in La Liga in their entire 109 year history.

Karim Benzema scored the first goal of the night. It was also his first away goal this season, assisted by Xabi Alonso, who notched his first assist of the season. Alonso hadn’t made an assist in La Liga since early May. Fun fact? His previous three assists, as well as this one, were all to Benzema.