nafees

🔒 ‘Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini conceded just 23 goals together as a centre-back pairing’ ❌ 𝗢𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻'𝘁 🔎 Debunking one of the biggest myths in football history 👇 🥸 This fake stat has caught out some high-profile media outlets over the years – Gary Lineker for example once read it out on the MOTD Top 10 podcast ✋ Stop and think about the numbers and you’ll quickly realise how impossible they are. Even for two of the best defenders the world has ever seen 🤝 Maldini and Baresi played together for 13 seasons; 3.8 goals a season is ridiculously economical 🇮🇹 The origin of the stat was Serie A's X account, which posted an image that has since been mistranslated into the abyss of the internet 🔄 It translates as: ‘196 games together, 23 goals conceded by AC Milan. Legends’ 🦅 Journalists spotted the mistake, but still couldn’t work out what the number 23 referred to 🤔 Was it 23 goals scored by the pair? A dull stat to shout about if so, and not particularly stand out 📊 Stat websites reveal Maldini and Baresi appeared on the pitch together exactly 400 times for AC Milan over 13 seasons which immediately debunks the number '196' 🤦‍♂️ They played 𝟮𝟵𝟲 Serie A games together – could 196 simply be a typo? ⚽️ Maldini scored 20 goals when playing with Baresi, who himself managed 12, so 23 doesn't refer to goals scored between the pair 🔢 Looking into the 400 games they played together in all competitions, it reveals they actually conceded 298 goals whilst together on the pitch 💡 The secret lies in 298. Divide that by the number of seasons they played together (13) and you get 22.92, or 23 when rounded up 😵‍💫 Serie A’s original social media post is mistranslated. Rather than 23 goals in total, it is in fact 23 goals on average, per season together 🏰 Given how defensive Italian football was in the 80s, that number isn’t particularly striking. Quite 'average', you could say 🤷‍♂️Which is what the original stat was meant to say in the first place