Five goals conceded in eighteen matches. That is Ecuador's defensive record in World Cup Qualification for CONMEBOL this season, a rate of just 0.28 per game that puts every other side in this survey to shame.
No club team comes close to matching it, though a handful are making their own case for meanest defence in their respective leagues.
The list
- Ecuador (World Cup Qualification CONMEBOL): 5 conceded in 18, 0.28/game
- Club América (Liga MX Apertura): 2 conceded in 6, 0.33/game
- Levski Sofia (Parva Liga): 4 conceded in 8, 0.50/game
- FC Rapid București (Superliga): 4 conceded in 8, 0.50/game
- MAS de Fès (Botola Pro): 17 conceded in 30, 0.57/game
- Juventude (Brasileirão Serie B): 15 conceded in 26, 0.58/game
- Lech Poznań (Ekstraklasa): 4 conceded in 6, 0.67/game
- Vissel Kobe (J1 League): 4 conceded in 6, 0.67/game
Two different kinds of stingy
Ecuador's sample size, eighteen qualifiers, makes their 0.28 per game figure genuinely hard to replicate over a long campaign. Club América sit right behind them on a per-game basis but from a much smaller window, just six matches in the Liga MX Apertura, meaning their 0.33 rate could still swing either way as the season lengthens.
Further down the list, Levski Sofia and FC Rapid București are tied on exactly the same numbers: four conceded in eight matches. Both will want to keep that identical pace going as their leagues progress.
The bigger sample sizes belong to MAS de Fès and Juventude, who have each played into the twenties and thirties of matches. Conceding 17 in 30 for MAS de Fès and 15 in 26 for Juventude shows a defence that has been tested far more often than the teams above them, and has still kept the concession rate below one goal a game.
Lech Poznań and Vissel Kobe round out the group, both at 0.67 per game from six matches apiece, a reminder that even at this level of defensive solidity, small sample sizes can shift quickly with a single bad afternoon.