Barcelona, Real Madrid & Atlético played their part in setting a 70-year Champions League benchmark | OneFootball

A remarkable statistic has come to the fore on Wednesday, regarding the historic extent of the goalscoring in this week’s edition of the Champions League.

European football’s most high-profile club competition, of course, returned to screens across the globe on Tuesday night.

As much came by way of the Champions League quarter-final first-leg meetings between Real Madrid and Manchester City, and Arsenal and Bayern Munich.

And what a treat the four sides had in store, the former pair playing out a pulsating six-goal draw, and Arsenal and Bayern sharing the spoils in a 2-2 stalemate, too.

Safe to say, then, that the pressure was very much on tonight’s quartet of Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid and Borussia Dortmund to follow up with a pair of action-packed outings of their own.

And, to their credit, this is precisely what the clubs cooked up.

The former culminated in Barcelona emerging on the right side of a 3-2 result, with Atlético having gotten the better of Dortmund by two goals to one.

And, as alluded to above, such endeavours on the part of all eight clubs have since given rise to a historic benchmark.

As revealed by statistician Mister Chip, the 18 goals racked up across the first legs of the Champions League’s quarter-finals are the most managed in the competition (previously the European Cup) for almost 70 years.

Only once before have more been scored, all the way back in 1957.

Conor Laird | GSFN