IFFHS CONTINENTAL NEWS - UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Picture : Lewis Miley (Newcastle) became the youngest player to assist a goal for an English club in an UCL game (17 years 226 days). He beat Theo Walcott's record who did it in November 2006 for Arsenal at 17 years 250 days.
Statistics on Champions’ League group stage round 6 (December 13)
*For the first time, Spain qualifies 4 teams for the Champions League round of 16 as group winners (Real Madrid, Real Sociedad, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid).
*For the first time, two English teams (Newcastle and Manchester United) finished bottom of their Champions League groups in the same season.
Over the whole previously UCL history, there were only 3 occasions when English clubs finished bottom (Blackburn in 1995-96, Man United in 2005-06 and Man City in 2012-13).
*In the meantime, Manchester City (with the 3-2 win over Crvena Zvezda) have become the first English club to win 8 consecutive European Cup/Champions League matches.
*Manchester City have done also their first ever all-win UCL group stage.
This is also first such success in the coaching career of Pep Guardiola.
*Prior to the Man City feat, only once an English club won all 6 games in UCL group (Liverpool in 2021), and only once it was done by a current champion (after Real Madrid in the season 2014-15).
*This season is just the 2nd in UCL history with multiple teams winning all the group stage games (Real Madrid and Manchester City), after the edition of 2021-22 when 3 clubs made 6 wins from 6 games (Liverpool, Ajax and Bayern).
*Warren Zaïre-Emery (PSG) became in the game vs Borussia Dortmund (1-1) the youngest ever (17 years 280 days) French goal-scorer in Champions League history.
He managed to score his first UCL goal earlier than Karim Benzema (in December 2005 at 17 years 352 days) and Kylian Mbappé (in February 2017 at 18 years 63 days).
*Barcelona’s 2-3 defeat vs Royal Antwerp, though not affecting their top position in the group, became 6th for Xavi as their coach in total 14 UCL matches. Xavi’s percentage of defeats (42%) is the worst among all coaches who ever guided Barcelona in UCL.
Es decir, es el peor entrenador del Barça en Copa de Europa.
*The Barcelona's talent Lamine Yamal, with his assist for Ferran Torres, has become the first ever 16-year-old guy in UCL history directly involved in a goal.
The youngest such player before him was Bojan Krkic, also from Barcelona, who did it in November 2007 at 17 years 91 days.
*Milan (2-1 vs Newcastle) moved to Europa League after ending a Champions’ League group in the third position for the first time in their history.
*Ebrima Colley (Young Boys) became in the game vs RB Leipzig (1-2) the first ever Gambian goal-scorer in a Champions League game.
Gambia is the 108th nation to have a scorer in the history of competition.
*Porto’s defender Pepe has scored vs Shakhtar (5-3) his another goal in this UCL campaign. This, he updated his own record as the oldest goal scorer in the history of the tournament (now 40 years 290 days).
Nobody else had ever scored in the Champions League at the age of 40+. Pepe has already done it twice.