Records set as runs fall

Records for a 15-year-old Dutch girl, Major League Soccer and English cup competition feature in FIFA.com’s latest stats review, alongside long sequences being halted for Bayern Munich and Bordeaux. was the average attendance Major League Soccer’s regular season finished with on Sunday, breaking the previous record – set last year – by almost 1,000 spectators per game. It ensured regular-season matches attracted a cumulative total of over six million fans for the first time since its 1996 inception. Furthermore, for round-robin championships finishing in 2012, the MLS boasted the seventh-highest average attendance in the world, after the German Bundesliga (42,387), English Premier League (35,719), Spanish Liga (28,138), Italian Serie A (23,176), Argentinian Primera Division (22,491) and Mexican Primera Division (21,559). Seattle Sounders led the way for the fourth consecutive campaign, with their average crowd of 43,144 setting a new MLS record, while five clubs topping the 20,000-barrier made for another milestone. Meantime, by scoring a penalty for San Jose Earthquakes in their 1-1 draw at Portland Timbers, Chris Wondolowski moved on to 27 goals for the term and duly tied Roy Lassiter as the all-time leading marksman in a single regular season (the latter achieved the feat in the MLS’s maiden running in 1996). years is how long Bayer Leverkusen had gone without a win away to Bayern Munich until they stunned the Bundesliga pacesetters on Sunday. Die Werkself’s previous victory at the Bavarian giants came courtesy of a solitary goal from Polish forward Marek Lesniak in 1989, but Stefan Kiessling and Sidney Sam earned Leverkusen a 2-1 success that lifted them to fifth and cut Bayern’s lead to four points. The result ended Jupp Heynckes’ side’s run of 11 successive league victories. Elsewhere, Bas Dost’s opener at Fortuna Dusseldorf ended Wolfsburg’s club-record run without scoring in the Bundesliga on 457 minutes, and put them en route to a 4-1 win that moved them off the bottom. goals in just three games is what rocketed Vivianne Miedema on to 20 overall in the UEFA Women’s U-17 Championship and made her the record scorer in the competition’s history. The striker had hit two goals in the 2012 tournament’s qualifying rounds, though they were insufficient to help the Netherlands reach the four-team final round. In the first preliminary round in the race to Nyon 2013, however, Miedema struck eight times – a record for a UEFA Women’s U-17 Championship match - as the Dutch overwhelmed Montenegro 15-0. The 15-year-old then netted six goals in an 11-0 reverse of Kazakhstan, before another four helped the Netherlands thrash Ukraine 16-0 last Thursday. Maria van Kortenhof’s team finished Group 8 having scored 42 goals – an average of 14 per game – to set a record for a group stage of a UEFA Women’s U-17 Championship. matches and almost seven months without defeat in Ligue 1 was the Bordeaux run Bastia ended on Sunday. Les Girondins, who won six and drew one of their last seven games of the 2011/12 season, travelled to Corsica for Round 10 as one of only two undefeated teams in the French top flight, but a brace from 19-year-old Florian Thauvin inspired Frederic Hantz’s men to a 3-1 victory that moved them up to 11th and dropped their visitors to eighth. Paris Saint-Germain did nevertheless protect the competition’s other unbeaten record at Nancy. Goalkeeper Salvatore Sirigu ensured Carlo Ancelotti’s side kept their seventh clean sheet in ten league outings, while a stunning 76th-minute strike from Zlatan Ibrahimovic moved PSG three points clear at the summit. Moreover, the goal made the 31-year-old Swede the first player since then Lyon striker Karim Benzema in 2007/08 to reach double figures in the first ten rounds of a Ligue 1 campaign. goals is what made Reading the first team in the 141-year-old history of English cup competition to score more than four goals and lose a match. The Royals were 4-0 up at home to Arsenal in the fourth round of the League Cup on Tuesday evening, but two last-gasp goals allowed the visitors to take the game into extra time. Thereafter, Marouane Chamakh found the target for the first time in 16 appearances to give Arsenal the initiative, before Pavel Pogrebnyak made it 5-5. The tie seemed destined to go to penalties, but Theo Walcott completed his hat-trick and Chamakh grabbed his second of a pulsating contest – both in injury time – to send Arsene Wenger’s men into the quarter-finals. It was only the 13th-ever League Cup match to include ten or more goals, while Arsenal have now won each of their nine encounters with Reading in all competitions. From FIFA