There have been a few articles in the press lately about Ronaldo overtaking Greaves as the all time top scorer in the big five leagues this season, given the last few years numbers it looks highly likely he will, current top 20 below: RANK PLAYER TOTAL 1 Jimmy Greaves 366 2 Gerd Muller 365 3 Cristiano Ronaldo 344 4 Steve Bloomer 317 5 Lionel Messi 314 6 Dixie Dean 310 7 Delio Onnis 299 8 Gordon Hodgson 287 9 Alan Shearer 283 10 Silvio Piola 274 11 Klaus Fischer 268 12 Charlie Buchan 258 13 Raul 256 14 Nat Lofthouse 255 15 David Jack 255 16 Bernard Lacombe 255 17 Zlatan Ibrahimovic 254 18 Telmo Zarra 251 19 Joe Bradford 248 20 Francesco Totti 248 What is just as interesting is Messi will no doubt move to 4th in a matter of weeks and by the end of the season Ibrahimovic could be in the top 10. Other big names who are scoring regularly and rising fast are Higuain and Aguero both on 179, and to a lesser extent Cavani on 165 and Benzema on 154, whilst Rooney is on 194. To put into context Aguero and Higuain are around the 100 mark in terms of position. I am a bit of a stats geek so found this interesting !
Which of those players in the top 20 were active when their league wasn't an unquestionable top five league? (per the coefficients at least). Or for a part of their career, like Shearer perhaps.
Completely agree, likewise the French league in the 70s/80s so was no stronger than the Dutch league say, and the likes of Onnis for example are up there because of that where Van Basten gets discounted 128 goals, same arguement with RVN later day with 92 in Dutch league, there is a case it could be a big 7 and include Netherlands and Portugal, but then it gets complciated as the likes of Scotland have had very strong leagues in the past, like wise the 30s for say Czech or Austria, or when Ibrahimovic was in Netherlands Dutch teams did beter in CL than French teams when he was in France... very very tough to draw theline !
Yeah. It is only bound to consolidate further Italy, consistently unable to qualify 3 teams on merit to Champions League groups, set to get 4 places in new deal https://t.co/OOqas6b4bL— Graham Dunbar (@gdunbarap) August 23, 2016 (this reminds me of the England/France deal in the 1990s)
Very true. Add any one of Czechoslovakia, Scotland or Sweden, and Greaves loses top spot. Add just Hungary and he is fifth. Add all four of these leagues and he comes eighth, behind Bican, Puskas, Schlosser, Zsengeller, McGrory, Szusza and Nordahl. Include Latin America as well and Greaves drops to the lower reaches of the Top 20.
This is largely forgotten now but Belgian clubs played European finals from the mid 1970s until the early 1990s.
It depends a lot on which leagues and historical periods one wants to consider. Austria, for example, was top two or three in the 1930s but definitely not after the 1950s. France wasn't top 5 for much of its history, and so on. A good (but very difficult) way to do this goalscorer list might be to consider every year the top 5 leagues in the world according to the coefficients (so, for example, McGrory's goals or Sarosi's goals in the 1930s would count but -say- Ally McCoist's goals in Scotland wouldn't). Also, if one just wants to consider *all* first division goals, things get pretty messy. For the most part, goals are only counted in official lists after the introduction of a single-league structure or of a fully professional league (for example, in Italy goals scored before 1929 are usually not counted, and in Germany this extends further to 1963 (!)). If one was to count all goals scored in first division championships, no matter the format or league structures, then long forgotten German striker Erwin Helmchen (1920s - 1940s) has scored 600+ first division goals, Dutch forward Abe Lenstra probably around 550, Fritz Walter more than 350, and so on.
Applying a fairly generous definition of "major league", the leading career goal aggregates in top divisions by decade of debut: 1888-89: Southworth 133, Jimmy Ross 127 1890s: Bloomer 317, Andy Wilson 207. The only instance of the leader scoring half as many goals again as his nearest contemporary. 1900-09: Schlosser 417, McLean 316. Another big lead. 1910-19: Hugh Ferguson 361, Friedenreich 354, Buchan 257 1920s: McGrory 410, Takacs 360, Gallacher 336, Braine 322, Dean 310. Piola's 290 goals in Italy's Serie A is still the record for that league. 1930s: Bican 518, Zsengeller 416, Sarosi 351, Fritz Walter 350+, De Cleyn 350, Langara 336, Erico 331, Peyrotreo 330, Willimowski 300+. Quite a lot of wartime league goals in here. 1940s: Puskas 511, Szusza 393, Di Stefano 377, Nordahl 376, Mermans 339, Dienst 321 1950s: Pele 541, Seeler 406, Greaves 366, Aguas 292, Albert 256, Skoblar 255, van der Linden 253 1960s: Gerd Muller 405, Bianchi 385, Onnis 363, Osvaldo Castro 351, Eusebio 342 1970s: Roberto Dinamite 470, Zico 406, Hugo Sanchez 394, Krankl 354, Cabinho 331, Fernando Gomes 330 1980s: Romario 458, Antelo 350, Hermosillo 323 1990s: Jardel 313, Ibrahimovic 293, Henry 284, Raul 275, Arveladze 248, Totti 248, Ronaldo 247. Ibra made his debut in 1999 and looks set to move into first place. 2000-16: C Ronaldo 347, Messi 314, Villa 259, Eto'o 251, Suarez 229 Bloomer, Pele, Schlosser, Romario, Puskas and Bican, in that order, hold the biggest percentage lead over their contemporaries.
Lookling at these I assume this inlcudes the US lleagues in its different guises? Likewise are some of the leagues regional feeding into a National Champ, i.e Brazil and Germany pre 1963?
The US league is included from the 1970s but not in the 1920s and 1930s. So no Archie Stark (300 goals). IFFHS include certain Brazilian leagues back to Friendreich, but nothing for Germany pre-1963. So they exclude Seeler, Willimowski and Fritz Walter. But RSSSF count the Oberliga goals of these three in their "official goals" list. I have gone with RSSSF for Germany and used Puskas1988's figure for Walter. Both bodies exclude Helmchen's tally in the Bezirksligen and Lenstra's when Netherlands divided into six regional leagues. I may have been a little generous when compiling the list of 1980s debutants. All Antelo's goals were scored in Bolivia, and Hermosillo recorded his in Mexico, Belgium and USA. Next in line were Cardozo, Warzycha and Polster, who all scored plenty in less famous leagues (although Polster did also feature in Italy, Spain and Germany). If we exclude all these, then Romario (458) holds a staggering 62% lead over his nearest contemporary Alan Shearer (283). It would be interesting to hear others' views on which leagues ought to be included when.
Its tough, for example if goals in the US post 1970 are inlcuded then I would say Polsters goals in Austria as you mentioned should also be included which takes him to 300 plus. In terms of defining a model it is nigh on impossible, the variables for the co-fficients are the country of the league and then also the time frames which changes over time. A prime example is Serie A, only two players in the 80s managed to score 20 or more goals in a season (Platini & Serena), whilst in the 50s when there is the arguement the leagues were of similar standard in the global game, 41 times a player scored 20 or more in a season. It is very hard defining the co-efficients, maybe use European or Copa Liberadores competiton fairing for example, however then draws come into play which is a random factor, for example Napoli got a bad draw lost in the first round in 1987-88 EC to Real Madrid, the quarter finals had teams from Scotland, Belgium, France, Romania, but it does not mean their league is stronger than Serie A in its golden period and should get a higher co-efficent.
Strange to see van der Linden there in the list. Cruijff cannot be too far off for the 1960s (291 including 26 in nasl) as is MvB with 218 league goals aged 27 (#2 Shearer is on 283 apparantly).
The Belgium league was in the top 5 of the uefa coefficient list almost continuously from 1978 - 1994, peaking at 3rd place in 1979 & 1980. 3rd: 79,80 4th: 78,86,90,92,94 5th: 81,82,83,85,88,89,91,93
An attempt to narrow down further to the major leagues of the time. Please feel free to suggest amendments. England 1888- ; Scotland 1894-1915, 1919-79; Argentina 1916- ; Uruguay 1916- ; Hungary 1917-39, 1946-55; Czechoslovakia 1919-39, 1946-89; Austria 1925-39, 1946-59; Spain 1929- ; Italy 1929-39, 1946- ; Brazil 1930 - ; (West) Germany 1930-39, 1950- ; USSR 1945-89; Yugoslavia 1947-91; Colombia 1948-53; France 1950 - ; Portugal 1960 - ; Netherlands 1968- ; Belgium 1970-99. That would reduce the scorers of 300+ goals from 60 to 22. The list would now look like this: Pele 541, Puskas 487, Roberto Dinamite 470, Romario 458, McGrory 410, Seeler 404, Bianchi 385, Di Stefano 377, Zico 371, Greaves 366, G Muller 365, Onnis 363, Takacs 360, C Ronaldo 347, H Gallacher 336, Fernando Gomes 330, Bloomer 317, Eusebio 317, Messi 314, Dean 310, McPhail 305, Halliday 303.
I'd start Netherlands in 1966 and end it in 2003 or 2005 at best. I also think that not every Brazil state league comes equal. But the popolous and dominant Carioca league has to be in, at least until 1994 (after that there was a massive exodus and implosion to be fair).
It depends on whether you want to include all the "good leagues" or just the "top leagues". If you just want to limit yourself to the top leagues, then one shouldn't consider a lot of the leagues that have been mentioned. I don't think any of the Eastern European championhip (except perhaps the USSR and Yugoslavia in the late 80s / very early 90s) has been a real top-5 league after 1960 or so. Uruguay definitely hasn't in the last 20 years. Scotland probably hasn't since around 1970.
If you discount the USA, then Pelé has "only" 504 goals (470 in the Paulista league + 34 in the Brasileirao). Also, should one really take into account the Paulista and Carioca leagues after the 1970 introduction of the Brazilian national championship? They're certainly official goals, but they are not national championship goals (that affects Romario, Zico and Roberto Dinamite's tallies a lot).
By the way, if you count the German league from 1929-30 to 1938-39, then aforementioned Erwin Helmchen scored 370 "good" goals in first division (He didn't play in the fanciest of the regional leagues, but still... plus, he was the top goalscorer of the "national" final round of the 1936 championship.)
Correct thanks. Removing Pele's USA goals gives him 504. IFFHS counts the Paulista and Carioca after 1970. If we take them away, Pele falls to 475, surrendering first place to Puskas. The other three Brazilians take massive hits. Romario drops to 255, Dinamite to 192 and Zico to 157.
I wanted to include more than the Top 5 leagues. Celtic were still one of the best club sides in Europe during the early 1970s. Removing Uruguay post-1995 takes 10 goals off Suarez and brings him down further to 128. Eastern Europe after 1960 does not affect anyone in the list but Shevchenko, for instance, would lose his 83 goals for Dynamo Kyiv and finish with only 136. The last of the three listed Scots finished in 1939.