This week’s #MilestoneMonday has been composed by Australian football’s stats guru, Andrew Howe (@AndyHowe_statto)

Across the split round of A-League action, both Western Sydney Wanderers and Wellington Phoenix recorded their biggest winning margins away from home.

Wellington’s eight goals in its 8-2 win over Central Coast Mariners contributed to just the tenth game in Australian national league history (since 1977) to record ten goals or more, and for just the second time in A-League history following Newcastle’s 8-2 win over the Mariners in 2017-18.

Another interesting feature of the Central Coast – Wellington game was that it saw national league debuts for four players – two from either side. 

The new players were Mariners’ Charles M’Mombwa and Lewis Miller, with Callan Elliot and Gianni Stensness from the Phoenix also making their debuts. 

The last time both sides had more than one debutant in a mid-season national league game (that is, excluding the first round when players often make their debuts) was in February 1996, Sydney Olympic (debutants George Valas and Ivan Zelic) against South Melbourne (Jean-Paul Knezevic and Michael Petkovic).

The men’s and women’s junior national teams were also active over the past week. 

With an Under-17 World Cup happening later in the year, the Joeys played in a friendly tournament in Turkey against the host nation (L1-4), Tanzania (L2-3) and Guinea (D2-2). The game against Tanzania was the first by any Australian team against Tanzania. Australian men’s and women’s teams have now played against 18 different African national team opponents and over 130 nations from all regions. The only time an Australian team had previously come up against Guinea was in 1985 when the Joeys lost in a penalty shoot-out to the west African nation at the quarter final stage of the 1985 FIFA Under-16 World Championship in China, the first ever World Cup for the men’s Under-16/17 team. 

Meanwhile the Junior Matildas, Australia’s Under-16/17 women’s national team, qualified for its sixth AFC Asian Under-16 Championship with a comprehensive performance at the second round AFC Under-16 Women’s Championship Qualifiers in Laos, defeating Iran (W3-0), Vietnam (W1-0) and Laos (W3-0). The eight-team 2019 AFC Under-16 Women Championship is being held in September in Thailand.