OpinionGoal rush: CSL scoring bonanza puts its average up alongside top European competitions, but off the insane pace of the Indian Super League
Twenty-five goals were scored across eight matches in this weekend’s Chinese Super League – the highest-scoring round of fixtures this season, but China still lags behind the scoring rate in other developing leagues
There were goals galore in the Chinese Super League this weekend in the highest scoring round of games so far this season. Twenty-five goals went in over the eight matches, with seven of those coming in the 4-3 thriller between Hebei China Fortune and Henan Jianye on Friday night.
The CSL might yet end up with another record year in terms of goals scored but even if it doesn’t the returns stand up to comparison, they are good value in that regard
This was the most goals since week three’s 23 goals, another outlier in an otherwise relatively low-scoring 2016 CSL campaign and a total that was helped along by the season’s highest-scoring game where eight goals were shared evenly between Changchun Yatai and Tianjin Teda.
Even with these two goal-laden weeks, the 169 strikes in the 64 games of this season averages out to just 2.64 goals per game, which puts 2016 behind last season’s 2.8 goals per game and 2014’s 2.75 goals per game. For further comparison, the 632 goals scored in 2013 and the 630 goals in 2012 both averaged out to a similar 2.63 per game over the season.
The last five years – since the beginning of Guangzhou Evergrande’s current stranglehold on the CSL title – have resulted in a year-on-year increase in the number of goals scored league-wide.
In their first championship season in 2011, the average was 2.35 goals per game and last season that was nearly half a goal more for each of the 240 matches – the 2.8 goals a record high return since the CSL launched in 2004.
WATCH: Highlights of Gervinho and Kakuta netting in Hebei China Fortune’s weekend win
It would appear that this positive trend might come to an end this season, though, despite the record HK$2.232 billion spent on transfer fees in the last window.