European Qualifiers - Goal records tumble in World Cup qualifiers - News
Goal records tumble in World Cup qualifiers
Wednesday 11 October 2017 by Paul Saffer
These European Qualifiers set new records for overall goals scored in FIFA World Cup preliminaries and for the highest-scoring individual and team campaigns.
Belgium, like Germany, scored a record 43 goals in their group ©AFP/Getty Images
With 794 goals across the 270 group games, the European Qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup were the highest-scoring ever.
European Qualifiers: all the stats
Watch all the goals
The most goals previously scored during a full set of European World Cup qualifying groups was 760 in 2006, when 276 matches were played. UEFA EURO 2008 qualifying then set the record total for goals scored across the groups in a single European cycle when 839 were struck – though that took 310 matches (2.70 per game, compared with this campaign's 2.94).
Meanwhile Belgium and Germany's respective tallies of 43 goals were the most ever registered in a single European Qualifying group for a World Cup or EURO, as was Robert Lewandowski's personal haul of 16.
World Cup qualifying top-scoring teams
1= Belgium 43
1= Germany 43
3 Spain 36
4 Portugal 32
5 Poland 28
6 Sweden 26
7 Bosnia and Herzegovina 24
8 Switzerland 23
9= Italy 21
9= Netherlands 21
© 1998-2019 UEFA. All rights reserved. Last updated: Wednesday 11 October 2017
LiveLewandowski holds outright European Qualifiers goal record
Robert Lewandowski's goal against Montenegro not only helped Poland to Russia, it also means he finished one ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo with the outright European Qualifying record.
LiveIn depth: Europe's World Cup contenders
The identity of Europe's 14 representatives at next summer's FIFA World Cup is now known. We check out their pedigree.
LiveEuropean Qualifiers: World Cup play-off places confirmed
The nine European groups in FIFA World Cup qualifying came to a conclusion on Tuesday, with only eight of the runners-up advancing to November's play-offs.