FC Barcelona, the highest scoring team in the history of La Liga ... 57 years later!

Martin Luther King had not yet delivered his famous 'I have a dream' speech, Michael Jordan wasn't born and West Side Story was the last Oscar-winning movie. It was December 16, 1962 and FC Barcelona were the highest scoring team in La Liga history, with 1932 goals. Real Madrid had two fewer.

One week later, Los Blancos beat Barça, led by Ladislau Kubala, 5-2. After that game, Real would stay at the top of the scoring standings for more than 57 years.

Until February 22, 2020.

The 5 goals scored by Quique Setién's men against Eibar have allowed the balance to be overturned six decades later. Barça now lead Los Blancos: 6151 to Madrid's 6150.

The biggest difference, in 1990

From the first edition of La Liga, in 1929, Barça and Madrid have been competing for this leadership. Real, who had been ahead of the Blaugrana for a long time, reached their maximum advantage in 1990, coinciding with the end of the 'Quinta del Buitre' era. At that point, they had scored 139 more goals than Barça.

But since then, thanks to Johan Cruyff's Dream Team and the last glorious Barça decade with Leo Messi at the helm, Barça have turned things around.

69 goals less just four seasons ago

However, the distance was still considerable enough until the end of 2016, when Los Blancos were ahead of Barça by 69 goals. That was the last big difference of the past five years, as the trend since then has clearly favoured Barça. At the beginning of the Ernesto Valverde era, in the summer of 2017, the disadvantage was -48 goals, while at the beginning of this season Barça were only 14 goals behind.