Chasing Gerd

David Kokkelink

Hi, it’s David! I’m taking over this week for the 103rd installment of the weekly chart series, with a topic that has been sparsely covered before: sports. Or, to be more precise, football records.

This year’s Bundesliga season has seen nine matchdays now. While it’s crowded at the top of the table with the top five teams only three points apart, the same can not be said for the top scorer list: Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski remains far ahead of the pack with 13 goals scored. For comparison: #2 on the list, RB Leipzig’s Timo Werner, scored only six.

Never before in 56 years of Bundesliga did a striker manage to score in all of the first nine games. So does that mean we can expect a new Bundesliga scoring record? Well, maybe:

The data for this chart came from the excellent transfermarkt.de, which has about every football stat imaginable.

I had a clear inspiration for this chart: This graphic on basketballer Stephen Curry’s 3-point-record by The New York Times. While Bundesliga’s goalscoring records aren’t quite as otherworldly as Curry’s 3-point stats, I thought it would be an interesting adaption. So, will Lewandowski be able to break Gerd Müller’s record? We’ll know for sure after matchday 34, on May 16th 2020.

I hope you enjoyed this article! If you think I missed something important, or in case you’d like to share your end of season prediction, let me know in the comments. See you next week!

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David Kokkelink

(he/him, @DavidKokkelink) is a co-founder and co-CEO of Datawrapper. Originally a software developer, he works across our customer-facing and product development teams to make sure Datawrapper is headed in the right direction. David lives in Berlin.

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