| Updated: Goals have been unusually difficult to avoid in Serie A this season, where the first 0-0 did not arrive until the 54th match. In Germany, however, the story has gone much further: Bundesliga clubs have scored 172 goals in the opening five matchdays, the highest total at this stage of any season in the competition’s history, surpassing the previous record of 170 from 1984/85. Two very different records raise a broader question: where are fans actually seeing the most goals per game across Europe’s leading domestic competitions?
Sportingpedia analysed all 440 matches played so far across the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Eredivisie and Liga Portugal. We compared the 1,383 goals scored across the seven competitions and ranked each league by its average number of goals per match.
The Bundesliga leads with 3.82 goals per game, narrowly ahead of the Eredivisie at 3.74, before the rate drops sharply to 3.09 in La Liga. Serie A’s extraordinary run without a goalless draw tells a very different story from its overall scoring rate: Italian top-flight fixtures average just 2.87 goals per match, placing the league sixth ahead of Liga Portugal alone.
Top European Leagues Ranked by Goals Scored per Match
Record 172 goals scored in the opening five Bundesliga matchdays
The Bundesliga has opened the season with a scoring rate never previously seen at this stage of the competition. Its first 45 matches have witnessed 172 goals, breaking the previous record of 170 after five matchdays, set in 1984/85. That translates into an average of 3.82 goals per match, the highest among the seven leagues. It is also running above the Bundesliga’s single-season record of 3.58 goals per game, established in 1983/84, putting the current campaign on an exceptional early scoring pace.
Only the Eredivisie is keeping pace, at 3.74 goals per game. Dutch top-flight fixtures have seen 269 goals across 72 matches, but from there the gap widens considerably, with La Liga third at 3.09. Bundesliga matches are averaging around 24% more goals than La Liga fixtures, while the Eredivisie sits about 21% higher. The 0.65-goal gap between the Eredivisie and La Liga therefore creates a clear separation between the top two and the rest.
La Liga leads the chasing group
Spain nevertheless leads the chasing group. La Liga has seen 241 goals across 78 matches, giving it an average of 3.09 per game and making it the only competition outside Germany and the Netherlands currently above the three-goal mark. Across all seven leagues, the average stands at 3.14 goals per game, with 1,383 goals scored in 440 matches. Only the Bundesliga and Eredivisie sit above that benchmark.
La Liga is also much closer to the competitions below it than to the Eredivisie. Only 0.14 goals per match separate Spain from the Premier League in fourth, compared with the 0.65 gap separating La Liga from the Netherlands. That leaves Germany and the Netherlands clearly detached at the top, while the remaining five leagues form a much tighter group.
The Bundesliga and Serie A reach the same goal total in very different ways
One of the clearest comparisons comes from Germany and Italy. Both leagues have witnessed exactly 172 goals, but the Bundesliga reached that total in just 45 matches, compared with 60 in Serie A. That means Italian teams needed 15 additional fixtures to reach the same combined goal tally. Bundesliga matches currently average 3.82 goals, compared with 2.87 in Serie A – almost one full goal more every game.
The contrast is even more striking given Serie A’s own unusual start to the season. Italy went through its first 53 fixtures without a single goalless draw before Como and Roma finally ended that run with a 0-0 in match 54. It marked the Italian top flight’s longest wait for its first scoreless draw in almost 80 years.
Serie A’s first 0-0 arrived in match 54 – yet it ranks only sixth
Avoiding 0-0s has not translated into especially high-scoring matches. Serie A fixtures have seen 172 goals across 60 games, an average of 2.87, leaving Italy sixth among the seven leagues. The distinction is important: having at least one goal in almost every match is not the same as having many goals in every match. Serie A avoided a goalless draw for an exceptional length of time, but its fixtures have not seen goals at anything close to the rate recorded in Germany or the Netherlands.
Bundesliga matches currently average almost one full goal more than Serie A fixtures. That makes Italy’s early-season sequence particularly unusual: goals appeared consistently enough to keep 0-0s away for 53 matches, yet the overall scoring rate remained among the lowest of the seven competitions.
Premier League and Ligue 1 are almost inseparable
The Premier League stands at 177 goals from 60 matches, an average of 2.95 per game. Ligue 1 follows at 2.91 after 157 goals were scored across 54 fixtures. Only 0.04 goals per match separate England and France. The Premier League has seen 20 more goals overall, but six more matches have also been played in England, which is why goals per game provides the more meaningful comparison.
Serie A is not far behind either. Only 0.08 goals per match separate the Premier League in fourth from Italy in sixth, while the four leagues below La Liga are grouped within just 0.2 goals per game. That tight cluster makes the gap separating Bundesliga and Eredivisie from the rest even more pronounced.
More than one goal per match separates the Bundesliga and Liga Portugal
Liga Portugal has seen 195 goals across 71 fixtures, leaving it with the lowest scoring rate of the seven competitions at 2.75 goals per game. That puts the gap between first and last at 1.07 goals per match, with Bundesliga fixtures currently seeing around 39% more goals than matches in Liga Portugal. The difference underlines just how varied the opening months of the season have been across Europe.
More goals have been scored in the opening five Bundesliga matchdays than at the same stage of any previous season, while Liga Portugal remains below three goals per game. Serie A provides another contrast altogether: its remarkable 53-match run without a 0-0 has still left Italy near the bottom of the scoring table. Together, those differences show why simply counting whether matches contain goals tells only part of the story.
Methodology
We analysed all completed matches across the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Eredivisie and Liga Portugal. The analysis covers 440 matches and 1,383 goals. Each league’s goals-per-match figure was calculated by dividing the total number of goals scored in its fixtures by the number of completed matches, allowing competitions that have played different numbers of games to be compared directly.