Barcelona waltzed their way to the Copa del Rey quarterfinals with a comfortable 3-1 victory over Athletic Bilbao (although it wasn’t that comfy on aggregate: 4-3) thanks once again to the unmatched brilliance of their front three.
Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr. created history as they once again showed the world just what they are capable of with some sublime moments of magic. Here are the best numbers from a night of celebration for Barcelona... welcome to 2017, you guys.
300 – Messi (124) Neymar (76) and Suárez (100) now have 300 goals between them since they began to play together. Considering they joined forces only in the summer of 2014, that is quite astonishing a number
147 – MSN also have an astonishing 147 assists between them during this period.
536 – Total Career goals for Lionel Messi. Oh my!
28 – goals (in all comps.) for the season, for the great man.
3 - Lionel Messi has scored three goals in 2017, all three from direct free-kicks. What a quaint little stat.
3 - Lionel Messi has scored from a direct free-kick in three consecutive games for Barcelona for the first time. Makes it even quainter.
3/5 - Lionel Messi has scored three of his last five free kicks; he had not scored any of his previous 15 for Barcelona this season. Well, Practice does make you perfect!
9 – Lionel Messi has scored in his 6th successive game - the 9th time in his Barcelona career that he has scored in 6+ games in a row. Consistency, thy name is Leo
100 – Luis Suarez opened the scoring today with his 100th goal for the club. GOALSCORING MACHINE!
3% – Suarez has scored only an incredibly 3% of his 100 goals from outside the box. At Liverpool, that number was 22%! What a difference a little tiki-taka makes, eh?
120 – Games needed by Luis Suarez to reach that tally! Only the great Laszlo Kubala (103)and Mariano Martin (099) were faster. Phew!
188 – Leo Messi took 188 appearances to reach 100 goals! But then again he was a teenager back then, was he not!
33 - Neymar scored his 1st club goal since v Man City on Oct 19. Barcelona had scored 33 times since his last goal. Boy, that would have the Brazilian superstar worried – and if his celebrations were any indication, that came as a massive relief!
1022 – Neymar has scored his first goal in 1022 minutes of football for Barcelona across all competitions. That’s an eternity in MSN years
84 – the no. of days that Neymar had gone without scoring.
The only two stats relevant to Athletic from the night’s action show just how dominated they were the entire night.
0 – Athletic failed to record a single shot in a first half for the first time this season, and then...
1- Athletic scored with their first shot against Barcelona – but that was about all that went right for them
Stats via the good folk at Opta, Squawka and Whoscored.
