Inter midfielder Hakan Calhanoglu opened the scoring for Inter in yesterday evening’s 2-0 win over Serie A, and in doing so he found the back of the net for the 26th time from outside the box in his senior professional career.
As football statistics account Opta highlighted in a tweet, this takes the Turk level with Inter teammate Christian Eriksen, and behind only legendary Paris Saint-Germain and former Barcelona forward Lionel Messi for the number of times he has managed to do so.
They tweeted, “26 – Goals from outside the box in the big-5 European Leagues since 2013/14: 61 – Lionel Messi 26 – Hakan #Calhanoglu 26 – Christian Eriksen 25 – Dries Mertens 24 – Philippe Coutinho. Specialist.”