Stat, Viz, Quiz is the Opta Analyst football newsletter. This week’s edition looks at Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League success, Rayan Cherki, and goal involvements.
It was supposed to be the so-called irresistible force meeting the immovable object… As it turned out, Inter were tremendously moveable.
Paris Saint-Germain were certainly irresistible, though, pulling their Italian opponents apart in Saturday’s UEFA Champions League final and sealing a record 5-0 win. In this week’s SVQ, we’ll be discussing PSG’s achievement of winning a treble, and why it’s significant.
For fans of clubs whose seasons were already over prior to the weekend, the mind has already wandered to transfers and as we will be doing throughout the summer, we’ll be picking out a notable player being linked with a big move and diving into some of their best data. This week: Rayan Cherki.
We have a Champions League-themed quiz for you as well, while this week’s Ask Opta question is all about goal involvements.
If you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe below for free to receive SVQ every Tuesday.
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The last two months of a season can be cruel. Not long ago, Inter were on course for a treble as they were in the semi-finals of the Coppa Italia, led Serie A, and were into the final four of the Champions League.
However, they lost to rivals Milan in the Coppa Italia semis and were pipped to the Scudetto by Napoli. They were able to overcome Barcelona in the Champions League semis to reach the final, but may wish they hadn’t bothered now after being on the end of a 5-0 drubbing at the hands of PSG this weekend.
It was a ruthless performance from Luis Enrique’s men, with Achraf Hakimi, Désiré Doué (2), Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Senny Mayulu all getting on the scoresheet as PSG recorded the biggest margin of victory ever in a European Cup/Champions League final.
It sealed their first ever win in the competition, and the first by a French team since Marseille lifted the inaugural Champions League in 1992-93.
Not only that, but after also winning Ligue 1 and the Coupe de France, PSG secured a treble for the first time in their history.
It made the Parisians the ninth different European side to win the treble (top-flight title, main domestic cup and European Cup/Champions League), also making them the first French side to do so.
Luis Enrique, meanwhile, became only the second manager to win a treble with a European club on two different occasions, having previously done so in 2014-15 with Barcelona. He joins Pep Guardiola on two trebles; he won it with Barcelona in 2008-09 and Manchester City in 2022-23.
It means that a European side has won the treble twice in the last three seasons, with City doing so in 2022-23. Prior to that, it was Bayern Munich in 2019-20.
In total, there have been 11 instances of a European team winning the treble, with seven of those coming since 2008.
If you want to read all about those 11 treble successes, we have an article for that. Grab a cuppa and give it a read (after you’ve finished the rest of SVQ, of course).
VIZ – Cherki to Man City?
We love transfer season. Granted, we prefer the actual season where football is being played, but the summer transfer window allows us to imagine how future actual football might look once certain players have swapped clubs for money that would make Scrooge McDuck blush (ask your parents).
One player who is seemingly on the move in the next few weeks is Lyon’s Rayan Cherki. The 21-year-old feels like he has been around for ages, possibly due to debuting for Lyon’s senior side just a couple of months after his 16th birthday in October 2019.
His immense talent was immediately obvious, but it took him a while to establish himself and live up to that initial hype.
Last season was an up and down one for Lyon, but ultimately it was an excellent one for Cherki, who ended the campaign with 32 goal involvements in 44 games in all competitions (12 goals, 20 assists).
That included eight goals and 11 assists in 30 Ligue 1 outings, but it was in the UEFA Europa League where he really stood out, with four goals and eight assists in his 12 games in Europe, even if his campaign ended in quarter-final heartbreak at Old Trafford following a stunning Manchester United comeback.
Cherki’s has a remarkable ability to make things happen. Of players from Europe’s top five leagues, only Bruno Fernandes (158) and Raphinha (152) created more chances than Cherki (125) in all competitions this season, while only Fernandes (120), Raphinha (105) and Mohamed Salah (104) created more from open play than his 100.
No-one can match Cherki’s 18.3 expected assists (xA), though, with Michael Olise recording the next most (18.1 xA).
In the Europa League, Cherki made the second-most line-breaking passes starting in the opponent’s half (80) behind only Fernandes (96), while he made the most line-breaking passes that directly created a chance (12).
There have been questions about his attitude off the ball, but he still averaged more possession regains (3.9 per 90) than fellow Lyon forwards Malick Fofana (3.3), Georges Mikautadze (2.5) and Alexandre Lacazette (1.4). However, he didn’t make very many tackles or interceptions at all. Only striker Mikautadze averaged lower than his 0.6 tackles and 0.3 interceptions per 90 for Lyon this season of outfield players.
Cherki is still very much a rough diamond, but links to Manchester City are particularly exciting when you consider how a player with as much raw talent as him could develop under Pep Guardiola.
Just as long as he doesn’t ‘Cherki’ his defensive responsibilities… sorry.
QUIZ – Champions League 2024-25
With the Champions League over and done with for another season, we wanted to base this week’s quiz around some of the best stats from this term’s competition. Answers at the bottom of the page.
Before we get going, some subscribers pointed out one of last week’s quiz questions, namely the one that asked which managers had won the title in their first season in the Premier League, omitted Sir Alex Ferguson from the answers. Apologies if the question caused confusion, we could have worded it better, but essentially, we were asking who had done so in their first season in the competition and at a new club. Ferguson of course won the first ever Premier League with Manchester United in 1992-93, but had been at Old Trafford since 1986.
Anyway, this week’s quiz…
1. Which two players finished the 2024-25 Champions League as joint-top goalscorers?
2. PSG went on to lift the trophy, but struggled early in the inaugural league phase of the competition. How many points did Luis Enrique’s men have after their first five games?
3. Inter trailed for 81 minutes and seven seconds in the final, more than in their 14 previous Champions Leage games this season combined. Rounding up to the nearest minute, how many minutes had the Nerazzurri been behind in UCL games prior to the final? A) 17, B) 27, C) 37?
4. Bayern Munich became the first team to score how many goals in a Champions League game when they beat Dinamo Zagreb in September?
5. PSG became only the third side to score 5+ goals in a European Cup/UEFA Champions League final after which two teams?
Ask Opta
This week’s question comes from Stephen F, who asks: “With Mo Salah equalling the goal involvements record in the Premier League, can you tell me the record for the other big leagues?”
Do you have a stats-based football question you want to Ask Opta? If so, send it to editors@theanalyst.com and we’ll do our best to provide you with the answer in a future edition of SVQ.
Answer:
Yes, Mohamed Salah left it very late but eventually was able to equal the goal involvements record for the Premier League with an astonishing 47 (29 goals, 18 assists), becoming the first player to do so in a 38-game season after Andrew Cole (1993-94) and Alan Shearer (1994-95) did so in 42-game campaigns.
As for other leagues, let’s take a look. Bear in mind, these dates are as far back as we have complete assist records for each league: La Liga – 1998-99, Serie A – 2003-04, Ligue 1 – 2006-07, Bundesliga – 2004-05.
In La Liga, you may be anticipating a familiar name to come up, and you would be right to. Lionel Messi holds a record that frankly dwarfs that of England, and indeed, anywhere else. The Argentine legend recorded a whopping 66 goal involvements for Barcelona in the 2011-12 season (50 goals, 16 assists).
There have been nine instances on record of a player recording more than 47 goal involvements in La Liga, and eight of those have been split between Messi (5) and Cristiano Ronaldo (3), with Luis Suárez the only other player to do so (56 in 2015-16, 40 goals, 16 assists).
In Serie A, the record belongs to Ciro Immobile, who recorded 45 goal involvements for Lazio in 2019-20 (36 goals, 9 assists). That is at least seven more than any other player has managed in a single campaign.
The record in Ligue 1 belongs to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who put up an impressive 51 goal involvements in 2015-16 for PSG (38 goals, 13 assists), at least six more than anyone else.
In the Bundesliga, Robert Lewandowski holds the record with 48 involvements in 2020-21 (41 goals, 7 assists) for Bayern Munich, ahead of current Bayern striker Harry Kane, who’s second with 44 in 2023-24 (36G, 8A).
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1. Which two players finished the 2024-25 Champions League as joint-top goalscorers?
Serhou Guirassy and Raphinha (8)
2. PSG went on to lift the trophy, but struggled early in the inaugural league phase of the competition. How many points did Luis Enrique’s men have after their first five games?
Four (W1 D1 L3)
3. Inter trailed for 81 minutes and seven seconds in the final, more than in their 14 previous Champions Leage games this season combined. Rounding up to the nearest minute, how many minutes had the Nerazzurri been behind in UCL games prior to the final? A) 17, B) 27, C) 37?
A) 17 (16 mins, 38 secs)
4. Bayern Munich became the first team to score how many goals in a Champions League game when they beat Dinamo Zagreb in September?
Nine (9-2)
5. PSG became only the third side to score 5+ goals in a European Cup/UEFA Champions League final after which two teams?
Real Madrid vs Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960 (7-3) and Benfica vs Real Madrid in 1962 (5-3)
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