No fewer than 22 players have scored their very first Ligue 1 Conforama goals in the first four rounds of the 2018-19 season. Check out some remarkable stats…
Since the beginning of the new Ligue 1 Conforama season, there have been plenty of firsts. While Paris Saint-Germainstar Edinson Cavani's Week 4 strike in Nîmes took the tally of Ligue 1 Conforama clubs he has scored against to 30 - and put him amongst the French top flight's 50 all-time top goal scorers - there were plenty of other players tasting the joy of scoring their first-ever goal in the competition.
Statistically significant
Among the 109 goals scored this season - at an average of 2.73 per match - 23 have been scored by 22 players who had never before found the back of a Ligue 1 Conforama net, from Moussa Doumbia (Stade de Reims) in Week 1 to Youri Tielemans (AS Monaco) against OM or Lucas Evangelista (FC Nantes) against Strasbourg in Week 4. Belgian international Tielemans, 21, had 30 shots on goal before finding the back of the net, while others opened their accounts more easily. In fact no fewer than 25 players in the current campaign have scored with their first attempt of the season.
The most outrageous is easily Clément Depres. After just 46 seconds on a Ligue 1 Conforama pitch, and with his very first touch, the Nîmes Olympique forward kicked off Les Crocodiles' stunning comeback in Angers (3-4). Also for Nîmes, Sada Thioub was the promoted side's first scorer of the season, hitting the target in the fourth minute - with his first shot on goal in Ligue 1 Conforama! Eight days later, little-known Makhtar Gueye (ASSE) made a grand entrance by sweeping home a late equaliser in Strasbourg - after just four minutes on the pitch. The Senegalese forward, 20, needed just one chance to make the break!
Pellegri: Youngest scorer so far
Meanwhile, back in Monco, Pietro Pellegri became the season's youngest scorer when he struck against Bordeaux aged just 17 years, five months and nine days. This first goal, which came in his fourth appearance and after 28 total minutes of play in Ligue 1 Conforama, helped him earn a call-up to Roberto Mancini's Italy squad, which he unfortunately had to miss due to injury.
Among the league's youngest scorers this season, the Italian is ahead of Timothy Weah (PSG, 18 years, five months), who also scored his first Ligue 1 Conforama goal, in the Week 1 win over SM Caen - his second start for the capital club. The USA international scored after just seven minutes on the pitch.
New faces cutting the mustard in Dijon!
Of the 22 new scorers in Ligue 1 Conforama this season, just one has managed to score twice: Dijon's Jules Keita. Not only that, the 20-year-old Guinean scored both his goals in one match - the 4-0 win in Nice - in just his third appearance and after just 36 minutes played in Ligue 1 Conforama. Before him, teammate Senou Coulibaly had marked his first Ligue 1 Conforama start by hitting the injury-time winner in Montpellier (1-2). And he did it with his first - and so far only - shot of the season! "I couldn't have dreamed of better," said the 24-year-old, one of nine players to have a 100 per cent conversion rate of shots to goals. However, SM Caen's two-goal Enzo Crivelli is the only player on that list to have taken more than one shot!
DFCO is currently a hotbed of new striking talent, with three players on the nine-man list, Oussama Haddadi and Nayef Aguerd (22) - who also struck with his first shot in his first Ligue 1 Conforama appearance - rounding out their contingent.
Meanwhile at promoted Nîmes, there were plenty of players making their Ligue 1 Conforama debuts this season and so, on top of Depres, Renaud Ripart - who struck with his first on-target shot - and Téji Savanier also opened their top-flight accounts.
Oyongo bags season's 100th goal
In just his second match with Toulouse FC, Aaron Leya Iseka - who spent the 2016-17 season with OM - also found the back of a Ligue 1 Conforama net with his very first on-target shot. Finally, given the prodigious achievements of the league's new scorers, it was fitting that one of them should score the 100th goal of the season: Cameroonian Ambroise Oyongo, who hit his first goal for Montpellier - a real screamer - with his first on-target shot. Of course!
