RECORD: Spain to serve up five-star CL campaign

FOOTBALL – Valencia CF reached the main stage of the Champions League and made Spain the first country ever to be represented by five teams in one CL season. In Thursday’s draw pots Valencia will be joined by fellow Spanish sides FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid and Sevilla FC.

ANALYSE THIS: Germany slight favourites at FIFA Women’s World Cup

FOOTBALL – Germany are the favourites for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, but only just, according to a new analysis from Infostrada Sports. The United States are second favourites and there is nearly 50% chance of the winners being one or the other of these two teams. They are, however, most likely to meet each other at the semi-final stage of the competition.

EURO CLUB INDEX: All-Spanish tie takes Last 16 headlines

FOOTBALL – According to the Euro Club Index the all-Spanish tie between Villarreal CF and titleholders Sevilla FC was the highest profile matchup that resulted from today’s Europa League Last 16 draw. Of the 16 teams still in contention, Sevilla is the highest ranked (14th) team in the Euro Club Index. The index claims that Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk v Ajax is the lowest profile tie on offer.

INFOGRAPHIC: The battle of the hat-trick heroes

FOOTBALL – Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are matching each other hat-trick for hat-trick as their remarkable scoring battle continues apace. Last Sunday at Deportivo La Coruña, Messi recorded his 33rd career treble (club and country) and his 22nd in La Liga, one behind all-time record holder Ronaldo. 

Lionel Messi’s double digits

FOOTBALL – Lionel Messi scored his tenth, 11^th and 12^th La Liga goal against Espanyol in FC Barcelona’s 5-1 home win against their city rivals. He has now scored 10+ goals against 14 different teams in La Liga. Click on the continue reading button to found out which teams they are.

INFOGRAPHIC: Magic Marc Márquez

MOTO GP – Double world champion Marc Márquez is on 12 wins this MotoGP season. With only one race remaining, the Spaniard needs to win Sunday’s GP in Valencia to break the record for most victories in a single 500cc/MotoGP campaign.

ANALYSE THIS: More Swedes than English in Champions League

FOOTBALL – Players from 64 different countries played in this week’s Champions League with their time on the pitch ranging from 4019 minutes by the 55 Brazilians appearing for 20 different clubs in the competition to a five minute appearance for Ludogorets by Tunisian Hamza Younes. England has the maximum number of clubs in the competition but English players were only 11^th in terms of playing time, lagging behind smaller nations such as Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden.

ANALYSE THIS: Overwhelming favourites in Groups A to D

FOOTBALL: Euro 2016 qualification begins this weekend and two of the top seeded teams in the draw, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Italy, are not the favourites to win their groups according to the Infostrada Sports’ National Team Ranking. Six of the nine groups have an overwhelming favourite to be group winner and only one of the groups looks truly competitive at this stage. We begin our assessment of the groups by looking at A to D.

INFOGRAPHIC: 2014 Basketball World Cup

BASKETBALL – Spain and United States are favourites to claim the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup. Click on the read more button to check our infographic.

ANALYSE THIS: The ‘Copa de Zebra’ revisited

FOOTBALL – As we reported earlier this week, the 2014 World Cup has been termed the ‘Copa de Zebra’ in Brazil where zebra refers to results being unexpected. Although six of the 16 teams who have progressed to the second round could be termed surprising, there have actually been very few surprise results in Brazil and 14 of the 16 survivors had at least around 40% chance of reaching this stage. The only truly surprising teams in the second round are Algeria and Costa Rica.