Two interesting records that can be broken this season

Rewriting records in football over the last two decades has belonged exclusively to Ronaldo and Messi. This season we may see two records broken, and neither of the aforementioned deserve to be. Namely, the number of assists in the Champions League and the position of the oldest player ever to play in a EURO tournament.

Most assists in Champions League history

Assists are often overlooked in football. Yes, their number is not as telling as in ice hockey. Clubs prefer to focus on players who can score goals. After all, someone has to set up the goals. The Champions League assist record is about to be broken this season and will probably be rewritten.

Who currently holds the record? To no one’s surprise, the top two spots go to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Cristiano Ronaldo is in the first position, having registered 42 assists, and right behind him is the Argentine with 40 assists. Neither is active in Europe anymore, so they won’t add to the collection. Behind them is Ángel di María with 38. After the end of his contract at Juventus, the Argentine signed with Benfica and they will play the Champions League again this year.

He has played for four different clubs in the millionaire competition, Benfica, Real Madrid, PSG, Juventus and will probably complete the circle again at Benfica. The 2019/20 and 2013/14 seasons in particular were prolific for assists, he registered 7 and 6. He’s already 35 years old, he probably won’t add many more years, this year he has a unique chance to make history as one of the few players who were better than the top two in history at something.

Benfica will face Inter Milan, RB Salzburg and Real Sociedad in the group stage. A minimum of six games and a great chance to advance to the next fights. Di María will surely want to help his team with both assists and goals and if everything goes well, he will celebrate after the season making history, he only needs to record 4 assists and he is tied for first place, any more will put him alone at the top.

The oldest player at the EURO

Everyone probably remembers Hungarian goalkeeper Gábor Király, it is he who owns this record. He was 40 years and 86 days old at the 2016 tournament in France, apart from catching in tracksuits, when he scored in the last game against Belgium in a 4-0 loss, but his save against Kevin de Bruyne’s direct kick was named the save of the season for 2015/16.

The record that the Hungarian goalkeeper created can only be rewritten by a handful of active players. At the age of 40, there are not many players in the national teams anymore, on the contrary, the vast majority are already retired from football. The oldest players from the last EURO are mostly finished, Goran Pandev has retired, Maarten Stekelenburg has retired from the national team.

Even Giorgio Chiellini can’t break the record, he won’t make it in a few days. Even Cristiano Ronaldo will not have the necessary age for this historic record. But who can beat Király is the Portuguese Pepe. The sometimes almost crazy stopper has already celebrated his 40th birthday and will even be 41 by the time the tournament comes around.

But the historical record has one significant catch. Pepe has to be nominated, which won’t necessarily happen, as the last national team meeting already showed that the Portuguese coach has a wide selection of young and quality players at the stopper position, so the veteran won’t have it easy at all.

Maybe the stopper will be helped by the intercession of Cristiano Ronaldo, with whom the coach has sat down and they seem to be good friends. After all, Pepe has let it be known that he will end his national team career after the legendary striker does. We will know in less than a year if the Portuguese stopper will get the nomination and rewrite one of the records.

Source: UEFA