Dembélé scores FC Barcelona's 4,000th home Liga goal

Ousmane Dembélé opened the scoring in the 4-0 defeat of Athletic Club on Sunday night, and there was additional reason for celebration. It was the 4,000th league goal that Barça have scored at home. 

Millennial goals coming quicker

Estanislau Basora, Andrés Ramírez, Patrick Kluivert and now Dembélé. The goal comes 19 years after the Dutchman netted goal 3,000 on 17 January 2004, also against Athletic, but in a game that ended 1-1. 

The 2,000 goal scored at home had come on 5 April 1981, and was the work of Andrés Ramírez, nicknamed 'Keegan', the first of two goals in a 2-0 defeat of Real  Valladolid. 

We need to go back an enormously long time to find goal 1,000. So far in fact that it was scored at Les Corts. One of the great wingers of his era, Estanislau Basora, scored the landmark goal in a 6-1 rout of Las Palmas on 10 February 1957.

It's curious to note that the gap between the goals gets longer the further back we go in time, although it is also true that teams play more league goals these days than they did in the past.