Champions League: Francesco Totti Headlines A Record-Setting Day

By Douglas Smith @DFresh39 on October 1, 2014

On paper, the matches of Tuesday’s Champions League group play were not that appealing. There were a lot of matches that seemed easy to predict. As always, that was not how it worked out with surprising results across the board. Most notably, there were two individual records set that deserve attention. That starts with Francesco Totti.

Totti scored in AS Roma‘s 1-1 draw with Manchester City to become the oldest Champions League goalscorer, surpassing Ryan Giggs. Totti has scored 17 total goals in the competition. He turned 38 on Saturday and beat Joe Hart with a beautiful chip in the 23rd minute to knot the match at one. Totti deserves to have this record given his loyalty to Roma, making 565 appearances with the team.

The goal came after Roma and Manchester City had a humorous exchange on Twitter. City welcomed Roma and mentioned Totti, who had never scored in England. The goal made for plenty of retweets as Roma celebrated the moment for Totti and fans of the player enjoyed a smile. It was a classic moment for the Champions League and soccer social media.

You’re right, @MCFC. Our Capitano has never scored in England. But there’s always a first time for everything… #CityvRoma

— AS Roma (@OfficialASRoma) September 30, 2014

Totti was not the only player to set a milestone on Tuesday. Xavi eclipsed the total appearance mark that had been held by Raul. Xavi made his 143 appearance in the Champions League as a second-half substitute for Barcelona in their loss to Paris Saint-Germain. Giggs made 151 appearances, but 10 were in qualifying rounds, while Xavi has appeared 143 times from the Group Stage on. Xavi is a three-time winner of the competition.

A team record was set on Tuesday as Bayern Munich notched their 100th Champions League victory with a 1-0 win over CSKA Moscow. This is after the introduction of the new format in 1992-93. Bayern would sit fourth in an all-time Champions League table.

Champions League play is just getting started and more records are sure to be broken. Cristiano Ronaldo is set to take over the all-time goal scoring lead with just four more goals in the competition. He does have one goal in the qualifying rounds as well. That will be the most high-profile record broken this season, but there are likely to be others that many may not be expecting.

Douglas Smith is a soccer writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @DFresh39, “Like” him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google.

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