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First of all, this doesn't include goalkeepers.

It includes Premier League, Ligue 1, Eredivisie, Liga Portugal, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga and the domestic cup, super cup (and league cup and relegation Play-offs if existent) of these countries.

Furthermore it includes UEFA CL, EL, ECL, also including the qualification rounds for these competitions + UEFA Super Cup + FIFA Club World Cup.

And it includes all National Team games from May 2014 (friendlies in preparation of the World Cup) until July 2023 (Gold Cup) no matter the competition, so also friendlies. Source: transfermarkt.de

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As we know the greed of FIFA knows no borders so we needed more teams and more games for the World Cup at the cost of the format which will be rather crappy compared to how it has been with 32 teams. The World Cup 2026 in Mexico, Canada and USA will be played out between 48 teams which also means that the qualification process isn't how we knew it from recent editions, here I will try to explain the new formats.

The increase of countries who are allowed to participate per Tournament:

UEFA (Europe) 13 ---> 16

CONMEBOL (South America) 4.5 ---> 6

CONCACAF (North America) 3.5 ---> 6 This already includes the 3 host countries, so actually only 3 spots are played out in the qualifiers.

CAF (Africa) 5 ---> 9

AFC (Asia) 4.5 ---> 8

OFC (Oceania) 0.5 ---> 1

the decimal .5 means that there have been intercontinental play-offs for one spot.

If you counted precisely you'll have noticed that the numbers only add up to 46, not 48. These 2 remaining spots are played out in inter-confederati

This includes all cup seasons from:

FA Cup since 2010/11

EFL Cup since 2011/12

Copa del Rey and DFB Pokal since 2005/06

Coupe de France since 1947/48

Coppa Italia since 2003/04

until 3rd of November 2023.

I could only go back as far as the Wikipedia Pages of the cup campaigns state the league tiers each club played in that very season. For some unknown but pleasant reason the Coupe de France is tracked very throughly, so we could go back extremely far there. We won't see any Italian upsets in the further post because the Coppa Italia is constructed very elitist which barely allows any matchup of even 3rd division clubs with Serie A teams, let alone 4th or 5th division teams.

In the seasons considered as noted above there have been 17 occasions in which a team from the 1st tier was knocked out by a team from the 5th tier:

This includes all cup seasons from:

FA Cup since 2010/11

EFL Cup since 2011/12

Copa del Rey and DFB Pokal since 2005/06

Coupe de France since 1947/48

Coppa Italia since 2003/04

until 3rd of November 2023.

I could only go back as far as the Wikipedia Pages of the cup campaigns state the league tiers each club played in that very season. For some unknown but pleasant reason the Coupe de France is tracked very throughly, so we could go back extremely far there. We won't see any Italian upsets in the further post because the Coppa Italia is constructed very elitist which barely allows any matchup of even 3rd division clubs with Serie A teams, let alone 4th or 5th division teams.

In the seasons considered as noted above there have been 17 occasions in which a team from the 1st tier was knocked out by a team from the 5th tier:

|Season | Round|Team won|Result|Team lost| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |49/50 | 1|SC La Bastidienne Bordeaux|3-2|RC Lens| |87/88 | 1|US Endoume Catalans Marseille|2-1 afte

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https://preview.redd.it/74sd946pwjzb1.png?width=694&format=png&auto=webp&s=fe5a49cc80639c744a164589a8e97019e8d9616e

https://preview.redd.it/0lxiyjrowjzb1.png?width=707&format=png&auto=webp&s=44560051ea11d35862be5ba853d7f9c8f6aa9d8b

First of all, this doesn't include goalkeepers.

It includes Premier League, Ligue 1, Eredivisie, Liga Portugal, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga and the domestic cup, super cup (and league cup and relegation Play-offs if existent) of these countries.

Furthermore it includes UEFA CL, EL, ECL, also including the qualification rounds for these competitions + UEFA Super Cup + FIFA Club World Cup

And it includes all National Team games from end of May 2018 (friendlies in preparation of the World Cup) until July 2023 (Gold Cup) no matter the competition, so also friendlies. Source: transfermarkt.de

1. | Erling Haaland | Manchester City | 22/23 | 36
2. | Luis Suarez | Liverpool | 13/14 | 31
3. | Harry Kane | Tottenham | 17/18 | 30
4. | Robin Van Persie | Arsenal | 11/12 | 30
5. | Mohamed Salah | Liverpool | 17/18 | 32
6. | Alexis Sanchez | Arsenal | 16/17 | 24
7. | Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink | Chelsea | 01/02 | 23
8. | Alan Shearer | Blackburn | 95/96 | 31
9. | Harry Kane | Tottenham | 22/23 | 30
10. | Ivan Toney | Brentford | 22/23 | 20
11. | Jamie Vardy | Leicester | 17/18 | 20
12. | Benni McCarthy | Blackburn | 06/07 | 18
13. | Alan Shearer | Newcastle | 99/00 | 23
14. | Wilfried Bony | Swansea | 13/14 | 16
15. | Darren Bent | Sunderland | 09/10 | 24
16. | Rickie Lambert | Southampton | 12/13 | 15
17. | Christian Benteke | Crystal Palace | 16/17 | 15
18. | Christian Benteke | Aston Villa | 12/13 | 19
19. | Nicolas Anelka | Manchester City | 03/04 | 16
20. | Jermaine Defoe | Sunderland | 15/

Being alone at the office at lunch has its advantages. I get to do a tiny bit of analyzing instead of socializing. After matchday 10 Ajax is rock-bottom of the league and PSV has won all their games. There's a 8 point gap already between the fourth and fifth place and it looks like our subtop has vanished this year. However, 10 games can give a very skewed look if you play against 'easy' or just 'hard' opponents. So I decided to see who has had an easier time and who has had a harder time. The main thing that kept being said was that Ajax has had a tough schedule and PSV has had it easy. While a look at the fixtures will mostly answer that question, I wanted to see how much of that rings true and compare it to other teams around them.

Method

I downloaded all the finished fixtures from a football data site and started working on the numbers. All teams got a strength number between 0 to 1 based on their current position on the lea

I tried to research the players who won the most domestic league titles. However, as this is an endless search anyway I restricted this to only players who have won their last league title within the last 15 years and I focussed on the Leagues in Europe, North and South America ignoring leagues outside of the Top-15 in Europe and very small leagues in America. For the players which are included in the following table I counted all league titles no matter the league, but there are other players who have won all (or the majority) of their league titles in smaller leagues which I didn't consider for the statistic.

I counted Apertura and Clausura league titles as 0.5 titles and also winning the MLS Supporter Shield without winning the subsequent MLS Cup as 0.5 titles. To win the MLS Cup I counted as "one full" title, no matter whether they have won the Supporters' Shield beforehand or not. I used transfermarkt's "A