Sequences
Probably the single most common type of question that appears is looking for record sequences of matches (or occasionally seasons) in which something notable has happened. Whether that is 'winning matches', 'goalless matches' or 'keeping clean sheets' all of them require the use of a similar approach using the Pattern Match functionality to find which team(s) have the records in particular examples.
For example, in the column on the 27th July 2022, this question came up:
“After seeing Wout van Aert complete three consecutive second places on stages at this year’s Tour de France, I immediately thought: what’s the record for a top-flight team finishing second multiple years in a row? (asks Joran Lamisse).
The immediate signpost to this being a question which lends itself to the Pattern Match functionality is the word 'consecutive'. A solution to this question in FastStats can easily answer the more general question of 'What is the longest run of seasons in which a team has finished in Nth place in the league?'. We can then hone in on the instances for 2nd place to answer the specific question above.
The first thing to note here is that could be entirely possible for a team to finish in the same place for 3 years in a row on more than one occasion and we really would like to be able to return all instances for which this has happened for each team.