Mauro Icardi: The anatomy of a goalscorer

MILAN - In a sport such as football, numbers might not tell the full story but they can say a lot. The figurers from Mauro Emanuel Icardi certainly express how important a player he is. With 103 goals in 180 Serie A appearances at the age of just 25 years and 27 days, he is the sixth youngest player of all-time to hit 100 in the league. Only the legends, Meazza, Piola, Boniperti, Borel and Altafini got their first. 

After coming through at the Barcelona cantera, he was brought to Italy by Sampdoria and scored his first goal as a professional in Serie B. To put it simply, his impact on the top flight in the 2012-13 season was excellent. He established himself as one of the league’s most interesting prospects, scoring ten goals from 31 matches with an average of one goal every 212 minutes. 

In the summer of 2013, Icardi was signed by Inter. His first goal in a Nerazzurri shirt is hard to forget given that it was Juventus in a 1-1 draw on 14th September. It was just the start for his impressive goalscoring record that continues to this day. In his first season, he scored nine and he would destroy his own record the next season with 22 goals in the 2014-15 season when he finished as top scorer. In the 2015-16 season, Icardi became Inter captain at the age of just 22 and he finished with 16 goals to his name, becoming the youngest foreign player to hit 50 goals in Serie A. The Argentina continued to score consistently. He netted 26 times last season. The landmark of 100 goals in Serie A kept approaching and it was reached in spectacular fashion thanks to his four goals against Sampdoria in Genoa. Maurito has 22 goals to his name this seasons and 103 goals overall in the Italian top flight. 

By looking closer with Opta Stats, we can see that since 2012, Mauro has scored one goal in Serie A per 43 touches of the ball. He scores once every 136 minutes and has a ratio of 0.53 goals per match. Fiorentina and Sampdoria are the Nerazzurri captain’s favourite sides to play against. He’s scored then times against them both and then seven times against Juventus. Out of the 30 teams in Serie A that he’s faced, only six have avoided conceding to Icardi. Furthermore, it was the sixth time that he has scored three or more in a single match. Nobody since his debut in 2012 has been able to match that in Serie A. He has bagged a brace on 18 occasions. 

Out of his 103 league goals, 65 have been with the right foot and 16 with his head. Overall, 98 of them have been scored inside the penalty area. Mauro makes more of an impact in the second half. 62 of his goals have come after the break, compared to 41 in the first half. Finally, a look at his assist figures. The players who have benefited from his assists the most are current teammates Ivan Perisic and Antonio Candreva who have been set up 13 and 9 times respectively. 

100 (or rather 103) goals for Mauro…And this is just the start!