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What is the latest meeting between two football teams with perfect records?

guardian sport
·8-min read
<span>Aberdeen and Celtic in their last league meeting back in February, a 1-1 draw at Pittodrie.</span><span>Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA</span>
Aberdeen and Celtic in their last league meeting back in February, a 1-1 draw at Pittodrie.Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

“When Celtic and Aberdeen meet on Saturday, both will have 100% records going into the match, with seven wins from seven. Has there been a later meeting between two teams with perfect records?” tweets Mike Slattery.

Saturday’s game at Celtic Park has a simple sales pitch: The Irresistible Force v The Irresistible Force. There are few precedents for opponents both having a perfect record after seven games apiece, and in fact we couldn’t find any in the men’s game.

The best in the top four English leagues is a combined total of nine wins. On 17 September 2005, José Mourinho’s Chelsea (five wins from five) had a top-of-the-table clash at, and you’ll like this, the Valley. Alan Curbishley’s Charlton had started brilliantly with four wins out of four, but Chelsea were comfortable 2-0 winners and the two teams started to diverge. Chelsea won the league at a canter, Charlton finished 13th.

Nine wins out of nine? Pah, try 29. “Due to weather delays, Arsenal and Everton didn’t meet in the 2008-09 Women’s Premier League until 29 March,” writes David Shannon. It was an apt date given how many they had racked up that season. “At that stage,” continues David, “Arsenal had won all 16 of their games and Everton all 13 of theirs.” Their records, at that time:

ARSENAL P16 W16 D0 L0 F80 A10 PTS 48
EVERTON P13 W13 D0 L0 F46 A9 PTS 39

Everton pulled off a stunning 3-0 victory, ending Arsenal’s 108-game unbeaten run in the league. It gave them control of the title race but Arsenal had the last word: they won 1-0 at Everton on the final day of the season to move above them on goal difference. Everton were runners-up despite taking 61 of a possible 66 points. And the prospect of being the answer to a niche trivia question 15 years later was of precisely no consolation.

Absolute Bangor

“Last week my team, Bangor FC, defeated Warrenpoint Town 4-0 in the Northern Ireland Football League Cup. The second goal was scored by Sonny Redford, 18, and the fourth by the evergreen Michael Halliday, 45. Has there ever been a bigger or comparable age gap between goalscorers?” asks Andy Martin.

There’s only place to start – and finish – on this one. “As per usual with these types of questions the answer is King Kazu,” writes Dewi Howells. “In 2022 Kazuyoshi Miura scored the third goal for Suzuka Point Getters against Tiamo Hirakata in the Japanese Football League, the country’s fourth tier. Miura was 55 years of age while the other goalscorers were both 25 at the time. Genta Umiguchi and Kaito Miyake are, respectively, 10,856 and 11,117 days younger than their former teammate.”

A word also for Stanley Matthews, who was one of five goalscorers for Stoke in an FA Cup replay win over Leicester in January 1962. Another was Peter Bullock, a 20-year-old who had been born 9,786 days (around 26 and a half years) after Matthews.

Goal machine

“As a Portsmouth fan it pains me to ask, have there ever been five goals conceded without reply in fewer than the 13 minutes it took us to achieve it against Stoke last week?” sighs Eddy Reynolds.

“It happened multiple times during the greatest rout in international football history: Australia 31-0 American Samoa,” notes Jack Hayward. “The underdogs held on for 10 minutes before Con Boutsianis scored the Socceroos’ opener. Seven minutes later, Tony Popovic netted his country’s fifth of the game. By the 27th minute (so 10 minutes after Popovic’s goal), Australia had scored five more, and both David Zdrilic and Archie Thompson had hat-tricks. Thompson was agonisingly close to answering this question all by himself. Five of his 13 goals – a record haul for a player in a single international – were scored in a 14-minute window between the 23rd and 37th minutes.”

It turns out Portsmouth have been on the right end of this as well:

But as a number of you also pointed out, those 13-minute quintets pale in comparison to an astonishing night in September 2015, when a Polish goal machine spewed out five in nine minutes: Robert Lewandowski for Bayern Munich against Wolfsburg.

“I am very happy for Robert,” said Bayern’s manager, Pep Guardiola. “For his confidence and our future this was extremely important. I can’t really understand it. Five goals. Neither as a coach nor as a player did I ever experience something like this and I can’t really explain it.”

More bizarre ink (3)

The thread of maverick player tattoos continues …

“Chilean Mauricio Pinilla has a tattoo of himself nearly scoring a goal,” offers Kári Tulinius. “In 2014 he hit the crossbar against Brazil, and if it had gone in, would probably have eliminated the home team from its World Cup. But it didn’t. Pinilla got a tattoo of himself and the ball hitting the crossbar, and underneath it says ‘one centimetre from glory’. Also featured are the Brazilians Thiago Silva and Julio César, so that counts as having a tattoo of other footballers.”

Knowledge archive

“Eidur Gudjohnsen’s son Andri played for Iceland against Wales last week, and his father Arnór also played for the national team. Are there any other national teams where a grandfather, father and son have played for the team at various stages?” asked Leon Hennessy.

We had this question in 2010, in reference to Manchester United’s new signing Javier Hernández, whose father Javier Hernández Gutiérrez and grandfather Tomás Balcázar also played for Mexico. Here’s what we said back then:

Aside from the Hernández/Balcázars, there are only four examples we can find of three generations playing at international level.

Taylor Rockwell and Rob Marriott both cite the Weisses. “Slovakia is coached by Vladimir Weiss (jr), who had 19 caps for Czechoslovakia, 12 for Slovakia, and played in the 1990 World Cup,” says Taylor. “His father, Vladimir, was born in 1939, had three caps for Czechoslovakia, and earned an Olympic silver medal. His son, Vladimir III (at Bolton on loan from Manchester City), will probably be playing for Slovakia in South Africa this summer. Three generations. Two World Cups. One Olympic silver medal. Forty-one senior appearances for two different national teams. Not too shabby.”

Andrew Stewart chimes in to point out that Northern Ireland have been served by three successive generations of Feeneys. “Jimmy Feeney was the first,” says Andrew, “followed by his son Warren in the 1970s, before his son and current international, Warren Jr. Two of Warren Feeney Jr’s cousins have played top-flight football in Northern Ireland.”

Paul Haynes nominates the Egyptian Emam family – “Yehia Emam, father of Hamada Emam, father of Hazem Emam, each of whom played many time for the national team” – and, finally, these islands’ premier historian, Cris Freddi, offers the example the Maltese Schembris. Salvinu Schembri, who won three caps for Malta in the 1950s, was the father of Ronnie and Eric, who both played for their country in the 1970s, and Eric’s son André made his international debut in 2006.

Can you help?

“Lancing’s recent Isthmian League South East Division tie with Three Bridges was postponed as two of their squad were on international duty with Bermuda,” notes Nic Murray. “Has the international break ever interrupted any fixtures further down the pyramid than this?”

“During the Finland v Republic of Ireland game, Oliver Antman came on as a substitute for the Finns in the second half. Apart from Hulk, are there any other international footballers who share superhero sobriquets?” asks Brian Walsh.

“Exeter City’s FA Cup date with Barnet means a stand derby: the Bees sold part of the Hive to the Grecians as part of the redevelopment of St James Park,” mails Stephen Joseph. “Have any other clubs sold parts of their ground to another?”