Back in July, around a year ago now, I came up with an idea. How many football matches do I watch in a year? It’s a project that I haven’t seen anyone else doing online. So then, over the course of the 2022/23 season, I tracked every single match that I watched, a number which ended up at 248. I also recorded the teams who played, the final score, the scorers, how many red cards there were, and the competition that the game took place in. This makes for a massive load of data, which I love. Let’s break everything down, and look at the data from an average football fan’s season.
Now, before we begin, I’d like to explain my viewing habits as a fan, because everyone watches the game a little differently. As a Barcelona fan, I watch more Barcelona games than other teams, naturally. I also believe I view a normal amount of games, maybe slightly more than average. I wasn’t on vacation or on a stretch where I couldn’t watch matches for several weeks during the season. If you don’t share these traits, then the data will likely be much different for you.
I also counted matches in which I saw the majority of the goals, not the entire thing. Also, at points in the season, I was watching 2 games, and once or twice 3 games simultaneously.
Top Scorers
Robert Lewandowski: 34 goals
Erling Haaland: 27 goals
Kylian Mbappé: 16 goals
Julian Alvarez: 15 goals
Marcus Rashford: 14 goals
Riyad Mahrez: 12 goals
Karim Benzema: 12 goals
Raphinha: 11 goals
Lionel Messi: 11 goals
Harry Kane: 10 goals
Vinícius Jr: 10 goals
Ousmane Dembélé: 10 goals
Mohamed Salah: 9 goals
Robert Lewandowski tops my chart, but as a Barcelona fan this is expected. 34 goals isn’t too shabby, mostly from Barca but a few coming from Poland duty as well. Lewandowski’s cold streak at the start of 2023 stopped him from getting a number in the 40s or 50s, as at the start of January he already had 21. Erling Haaland is second, he was a machine, especially early in the season. His 5 goal-game vs RB Leipzig, of which I watched the entirety, as well as Hat-tricks against Man United and Nottingham Forest. He had 13 goals by mid-October, but I didn’t see him score again until January, which hurt him a bit. There’s a big gap to 3rd place, with Kylian Mbappé. When he scored the last goal I saw him score, he had more goals than Haaland, but he didn’t score after the friendly in January against the Riyadh Season Team. Julian Alvarez oddly got 4th spot with 15 goals, then Marcus Rashford, Riyad Mahrez, and Karim Benzema. I saw Raphinha and Ousmane Dembélé score double digits, but I only saw Messi score 11 and Cristiano Ronaldo a paltry 4 goals over the course of the season, 2 of which came in the friendly vs PSG.
Most Matches watched
Barcelona: 54 matches
Man City: 33 matches
Liverpool: 23 matches
Real Madrid: 22 matches
Man Utd: 19 matches
Chelsea: 18 matches
Arsenal: 15 matches
PSG: 10 matches
Spurs: 10 matches
Inter: 7 matches
Bayern: 7 matches
Newcastle: 6 matches
Wolves: 6 matches
Benfica: 5 matches
No surprise, I watched way more Barcelona games than any other team. However, Man City once again come second, and with a cushion between them and other teams. I think this is a combo of them having a really appealing schedule to a neutral as well as just being a really fun team to watch and me wanting to see them when I could. I also watched Liverpool and Real Madrid over 20 times, and strangely PSG only 10 times and Bayern only 7 times. I can explain the lack of watching Bayern on the fact that access to the Bundesliga in Canada was very limited in Canada, at least until this season that is as all matches will be on DAZN. But PSG, I don’t know. Perhaps it was their lacklustre UCL performance and group, combined with me not really excited to watch them. Surprise inclusions are Benfica, Wolves, and Newcastle, who I watched more often than I thought I would.
Win % (at least 5 games)
Benfica: 80% (4 of 5)
Man City: 75.7% (25 of 33)
Bayern: 71.4% (5 of 7)
Barcelona: 68.5% (37 of 54)
Man Utd: 68.4% (13 of 19)
Arsenal: 60% (9 of 15)
Inter: 57.1% (4 of 7)
PSG: 50% (5 of 10)
Real Madrid: 45.4% (10 of 22)
Wolves: 33.3% (2 of 6)
Liverpool: 30.4% (7 of 23)
Spurs: 30% (3 of 10)
Chelsea: 11.1% (2 of 18)
Newcastle: 0% (0 of 6)
I didn’t think I’d see Benfica atop this list when I started this, with them winning 4 of the 5 games I watched them play. They beat Newcastle 3-2 in a friendly, beat Juventus 4-3, beat Maccabi Haifa 6-1, and Club Brugge 5-1. Their only non-win was a 1-1 draw against PSG, still very respectable. However, it was only 5 games, so does it really count? Man City kept up nearly as good of a record across 33 matches, although their overall win percentage couldn’t have been too far below that number with them winning the treble and all. Barcelona won 68% of their matches with me watching, and toward the bottom end, I seemed to be an unlucky charm for many teams. PSG only won 50% of their matches, Real Madrid only won 45%, and the shocking ones, Liverpool and Spurs 30%, and Chelsea 11%. I mean, I watched almost every Chelsea match in their great capitulation of late season, in the late days of Graham Potter and the full reign of Frank Lampard, but only 2 wins from 18 matches? That’s just embarrassing. Liverpool and Spurs’ records also really surprised me, so did me not seeing a single Newcastle win from 6 matches. I’m still very high on Newcastle’s project, so that shocked me.
Loss %
Chelsea: 72.2% (13 of 18)
Newcastle: 66.6% (4 of 6)
Wolves: 66.6% (4 of 6)
Spurs: 60% (6 of 10)
Liverpool: 47.8% (11 of 23)
Real Madrid: 40.9% (9 of 22)
PSG: 40% (4 of 10)
Inter: 28.5% (2 of 7)
Arsenal: 26.6% (4 of 15)
Man Utd: 21% (4 of 19)
Barcelona: 14.8% (8 of 54)
Bayern: 14.2% (1 of 7)
Man City: 9% (3 of 33)
Benfica: 0% (0 of 5)
I don’t have to explain this too much, as it’s pretty much the last list flipped upside down. Chelsea tops it this time, losing 13 of the 18 matches I saw them play. Barcelona only lost 14.8% of matches, and Man City on 3 of 33.
26 games with Red Cards (10.4%)
1 game with 2 red cards (Osasuna 1-2 Barca)
25 games with 1 red card
222 games with 0 red cards
I was surprised by the lack of red cards I saw this season, as on average, 1 of every 4 games has a red card, but only 1 of 10 did here. Also, of the 248 matches I watched, only 1 had multiple red cards, but I did count the one given to the substitute Gerard Piqué vs Osasuna, so no games had one team down to 9 or both teams down to 10. There were a few streaks with no red cards that stood out. There was a stretch of 29 games where I didn’t see a red card, from Arsenal’s win in the NLD on October 1st to Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw to Girona at the Bernabéu on the 30th. Just a few games prior to that NLD ended a 32-game streak without a sending off, from Barcelona’s 2-0 friendly win vs the New York Red Bulls on July 30th to Man City’s 3-0 win vs Wolves on September 17th. However, none of these compare to the 59-game streak without any red cards that I saw. It started after the aforementioned 2 red card game vs Osasuna on November 8th and ended with Barcelona’s 1-1 draw vs Espanyol on the 31st of December. Sure, it wasn’t the longest streak in terms of time, but mind you, there was a full World Cup between those red cards. There was only a 9% chance of this happening according to ChatGPT.
Games by Competition
Premier League: 65 games
World Cup: 51 games
La Liga: 42 games
Champions League: 31 games
Friendlies: 14 games
Europa League: 7 games
EFL Cup: 6 games
Copa del Rey: 5 games
Serie A: 4 games
Ligue 1: 3 games
Bundesliga: 2 games
DFB Pokal: 2 games
FA Cup: 2 games
Nations League: 2 games
Spanish Supercopa: 2 games
Euro 2024 Qualification: 1 game
Ligue 2: 1 game
UEFA Super Cup: 1 game
These statistics aren’t too surprising, but only seeing 4 Serie A, 3 Ligue 1, and 2 Bundesliga games is an eye-opener. 31 is much more Champions League than I thought I saw, and 14 is more friendlies than I thought I saw too. However, not a particularly surprising stat.
Highest Scoring Games:
- Atalanta 8-2 Salernitana
- Man City 6-3 Man Utd
- Riyadh Season Team 4-5 PSG
- PSG 7-2 Maccabi Haifa
- Liverpool 9-0 Bournemouth
- Nurnberg 3-5 Arsenal
- England 6-2 Iran
- Man City 7-0 RB Leipzig
- Liverpool 2-5 Real Madrid
- Liverpool 4-3 Spurs
- Portugal 6-1 Switzerland
- Intercity 3-4 Barcelona
- Maccabi Haifa 1-6 Benfica
- Benfica 4-3 Juventus
- Spain 7-0 Costa Rica
- Crystal Palace 4-3 West Ham
The last statistic we’ll go over is a fun one. I saw one 10-goal game, Atalanta’s pummelling of Salernitana back in April which I won’t mention the scoreline of, and 4 9-goal games. Arsenal’s 5-3 win vs Nurnburg, the first game I watched this season, is one of the 2 8-goal games I saw, and I saw 9 7-goal games. Overall, I saw some belters of games.
That’s all we’ll cover today. If you want to dig deeper into the statistics, here is the google spreadsheet which I filled in all the games. I made it viewer only to anyone who has the link, you can make your own copy to edit or take the template of. Honestly I cannot wait to do this again over the 2023/24 season. I’m Jim James, until next time.