8 Insane Arjen Robben Stats No One Talks About

Arjen Robben is one of the best footballers in the world, and his style of play is just as unique as his talent.

If he were a silhouette, one could rather easily identify him for his telltale jittery changes in direction and pace, his slaloming dribbling style and of course his propensity to cut in from the right wing and curl a left-footed shot towards the far corner.

The Dutchman is a unique player in many ways, even in terms of statistics. For example, according to data from Transfermarkt.com, 88.3 percent of his goals scored since joining Bayern Munich have come from left-footed shots.

Robben's propensity to shoot with his left foot is quite commonly understood, but there are many other eye-popping stats that characterize the winger and his style of play.

Here is a close look at the numbers that make Robben the unique player he is.

He's Hardly Played More Games at Bayern Than When He Was a "Glass Man"

Matthias Schrader/Associated Press

When Robben moved to Bayern, he was known as a "glass man," a player who despite all his abundant talent was constantly injured.

And since moving to Munich he's had some major setbacks, most notably a five-centimeter-long tear in his hamstring muscle that forced him to miss the entire first half of the 2010-11 campaign.

Robben has played 300 top-flight league matches, averaging just 23.1 per season in his 13-year professional career. This average will most likely be tweaked to 23.2, assuming he plays in the final matchday of the current campaign.

Still, his average is rather on the low side. In the eight seasons he's spent in 34-game-per-season leagues (the Bundesliga and Eredivisie), he's played 183 games, or 67 percent of the domestic fixtures in which he could have played.

And during five seasons in 38-game-per-season leagues (the Premier League and La Liga), he played 117 games, or 62 percent of the possible fixtures. But to Robben's credit, when he is indeed fit, he's rarely anything other than prolific.

On the whole, Robben has played in 65 percent of the domestic matches in which he has been eligible to play, with a maximum of 33 games played in 2002-03 and a minimum of 14 in 2010-11.

He’s Scored as Many Winners in Cup Finals as Cristiano Ronaldo

Alastair Grant/Associated Press

For much of his career, Robben was known as a big-game choker, a player with great skill but without the nerve to come through in the moments that mattered most. Cristiano Ronaldo, meanwhile, is often celebrated as heroic, a leader who was granted the Portugal captaincy at the age of 23.

Despite the disparities in reputation, Robben has decided just as many cup finals as Ronaldo during his professional career: two.

Robben scored the opener in Bayern's 4-0 win against Bremen in the 2010 DFB-Pokal final. Six years prior, Ronaldo had found the net first in Manchester United's 3-0 victory over Millwall, a result that saw the Red Devils claim the FA Cup.

Ronaldo also netted the winner in the 103rd minute of the 2011 Copa del Rey final, a grueling victory over Barcelona that had to be decided in extra time. Two years later, Robben netted a late winner for Bayern in their Champions League final victory over Dortmund.

Perhaps Robben isn't such a loser after all.
 

Statistically, His Right Foot Isn't the Least Useful Part of His Body

It's always been well known that Robben's left foot is his greatest weapon. And it's been commonly accepted by many that his right foot is used for little more than running.

Robben has indeed scored the vast majority of his goals with his left foot. Since joining Bayern, he's used his favored foot to score 83 goals in all competitions for club and country. This figure equates to 88.3 percent of his 94 goals overall.

Of the remaining 11 goals Robben has scored, however, a slight majority (six) have come with his right foot. It is instead his head, which he has used to score five times, that is his least-favored weapon among the three most common body parts used to shoot.

Almost All of His Champions League Goals at Bayern Came in the KO Stage

JON SUPER/Associated Press

Some players write history by beating up on lesser teams. Arjen Robben is not one of them. He's a player for the big occasion, one who despite not always coming through still is often able to make the difference.

And when he does, it can be spectacular, even with little or no team support.

Robben has scored an outstanding 12 of his 16 Champions League goals at Bayern in the knockout stages. Curiously, three of the four non-knockout round goals came this season.

The Bayern faithful knew Robben was a player for the grand occasion even in his first year, when he scored critical away goals against Fiorentina and Manchester United en route to the final. Both goals required outstanding shooting technique, the kind no other Bayern player could have converted at the time.

Since Robben's heroics against United and Fiorentina, he's had his ups and downs. But Robben has written his name in the history books by scoring the winner in last year's final and for generally knowing how to raise his game in the knockout rounds, the games that matter most.

He Commits as Many Fouls Per Game as He Makes Tackles

Matthias Schrader/Associated Press

For most any defensive player, a high tackles-to-fouls ratio is common. Arjen Robben is not a defender.

His tackles-to-fouls ratio is 1-to-1, according to WhoScored.com.

Robben allegedly averages just 0.4 tackles and as many fouls per Bundesliga game. In the Champions League this season, he had an even more unfavorable tackles-to-fouls ratio, one of less than 1-to-2. He'd tackle slightly more often (0.5 times per game) but commit many more fouls (1.1 per game).

Defending never was Robben's strong suit, and no one who has even occasionally watched him play would assert that the 30-year-old is a great defender.

But quantifying just how poor of a defender he is (a related statistic from the same source: Players dribble past him at a rate 1.5 times that of his foul and tackling rate) reveals the rather shocking magnitude of his poor defensive ability.

He Scores More from the Left and Assists More from the Right

Paul White/Associated Press

Robben is known as a direct and selfish player, one who is eager to shoot on goal. That explains why, although strictly left-footed, he plays on the right wing: Rather than using his favored foot to cross, as he would if deployed on the left wing, he can use it to shoot after cutting in from the right.

The use of "inverting" a winger, playing him on the flank opposite his stronger foot, is designed to help the winger score goals at the expense of setting them up. Yet, at least this season, Robben has been more prolific on average from the left and better at assisting goals from the right.

Robben has averaged 0.8 goals per game (four goals in five games) in the Bundesliga this season while playing on the left, while providing precisely zero assists. And although his goals tally on the right is formidable, his rate of 0.39 (nine in 23 appearances) goals per game is less than half his rate on the left.

From the right, Robben has in fact assisted goals at an appreciable rate. That rate is also 0.39 per game; he's assisted as often as he's scored from the right.

For Such a Selfish Player, He Actually Assists a Lot of Goals

Matthias Schrader/Associated Press

One gripe that many have about Robben is that he is a "selfish" player, that he too often opts to go for goal rather than passing. And indeed, the Dutchman really can be faulted for being too hungry to pull the trigger.

However, Robben's selfishness does not mean that he does not assist many goals. He does.

Over the course of his entire professional career, as well as at the 2001 Under-20 World Cup and Under-21 European Championship qualifiers, Robben has scored 170 goals in his career, according to Transfermarkt. His assists tally is not far behind, at 142.

At that rate, for every six goals he scores, he assists approximately five.

Not bad for a selfish player.

He's Cost Teams More in Transfer Fees Than Any Other Bundesliga Player

Matthias Schrader/Associated Press

No player in the history of the Bundesliga has cost more in transfer fees than Arjen Robben. The player's fragility early in his career made him expendable to teams that moved on and built their plans around other players when he was unable to perform.

But he was still immensely talented and therefore commanded significant transfer fees when sold.

Per Transfermarkt, an 18-year-old Robben left his youth club, Groningen, for PSV Eindhoven for a fee of €4.3 million in 2002. After two seasons at PSV, Robben was then sold to Chelsea for €18 million.

He was often injured and Roman Abramovich had other plans, so the Dutchman was offloaded to Real Madrid for €36 million. And similarly, Los Blancos found him surplus to requirements in the summer of 2009, when they swapped eventual Champions League winners Robben and Wesley Sneijder, among others, to finance the purchases of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Xabi Alonso and more.

Robben joined Bayern, who paid €24 million for his release.

No other player in Bundesliga history has cost so much. Mesut Ozil's transfers have totaled €73 million, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar €65.9 million and Diego €57 million, for example.

In that category, the Dutchman reigns supreme.