Clean sheets were in short supply. Across the world's leagues, 155 matches this round finished with both teams finding the net, the kind of day where goalkeepers on both sides had plenty to retrieve from their own goal.
Most of those games settled into familiar patterns: a goal here, a reply there, three or four strikes shared across ninety minutes. A handful went further than that, tipping from competitive into chaotic.
The eight wildest
- Al-Shabab 6-1 Al-Ahli (Saudi Pro League)
- Milton Keynes Dons 6-1 Doncaster Rovers (League One)
- Nice 5-2 Stade Rennais (Ligue 1)
- Udinese 2-5 AS Roma (Serie A)
- Lokomotiv Sofia 2-5 Botev Plovdiv (Parva Liga)
- Grimsby Town 5-2 York City (League Two)
- Aalesunds FK 3-4 Sandefjord Fotball (Eliteserien)
- Boreham Wood 4-3 Hartlepool United (National League)
Al-Shabab's 6-1 win over Al-Ahli produced the widest margin of the lot, seven goals in total, with Al-Ahli's single reply the only thing standing between it and a shutout. Milton Keynes Dons matched the gap with their own six-goal haul against Doncaster Rovers, winning 6-1 in League One.
In Ligue 1, Nice put five past Stade Rennais and conceded twice themselves in a 5-2 scoreline that never looked settled while both teams kept finding space to attack. AS Roma produced the same scoreline on the road, winning 5-5 wait, no, 2-5 at Udinese, scoring five away from home while still shipping two.
Not every wild afternoon came from the continent's bigger leagues. Bulgaria's Parva Liga saw Botev Plovdiv win 5-2 at Lokomotiv Sofia, and in Norway's Eliteserien, Sandefjord Fotball edged a seven-goal thriller 4-3 away at Aalesunds FK. English non-league football offered its own version in the National League, where Boreham Wood beat Hartlepool United 4-3, and League Two served up Grimsby Town's 5-2 win over York City.
None of these results were goalless, obviously. What stands out is how often the losing side still managed to score two, three, even four times and still came away with nothing. Defending, on this particular round, was very much optional.