All Time Leading Scorers

For all games or just inernational games? I doubt the first is possible to get.

 

though it would be good to know also the score for all official games... I mean, we all do "know" how much goals Pelé scored in his career, not only counting international matches, but also including brasilian league ones, and it's IMPRESSIVE. It would be nice to know who's current female equivalent of Pelé (Marta? She's even brazilian too).

It's a shame the fact that I don't think this kind of statistics are available anywhere (except maybe for some FIFA source not currently open to public audience). Probably you could patiently re-build something alike, by checking various sources (local federations, etc.), but I am not sure something of the kind is really available.

In my opinion, if FIFA would made more statistics like these ones available on the net, that would be a way to push women football a little, without investing too much resources (i.e. money). Since they apparently don't want to spend any money at all on promoting women football, they could at least promote it in cheap ways that don't cost much or don't cost anything, like making more data available. For instance, I don't know if you followed the thread that I started about a month ago, about FIFA women's Ballon d'Or (aka Women World's Player of the Year), but finding on-line info about that subject it's incredibly difficult too.

 

I agree Blissett, it's terrible there is no good source for this info. I'm not surprised that FIFA doesn't have it, but I am surprised of other sites (RSSSF, IFFHS, etc.).

Got a top ten to start with:

Code:

1. Mia Hamm		USA	158
2. Kristine Lilly	USA	130
3. Birgit Prinz		USA	128
4. Abby Wambach		USA	125
5. Christine Sinclair	CAN	117
6. Julie Fleeting	SCO	107
7. Elisabetta Vignotto	ITA	107
8. Michelle Akers	USA	105
9. Carolina Morace	ITA	105
10. Tiffeny Millbret	USA	100

Sources:
http://www.allwhitekit.com/?p=1674
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/thepitch/birgit-prinz-a-german-football-legend-retires/459601
http://www.ussoccer.com/News/Womens...da-30-Behind-Two-Goals-from-Abby-Wambach.aspx
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/18/s...er-presses-on-for-us.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm

 

LOL sorry typed it out too fast while at work

Code:

1. Mia Hamm		USA	158
2. Kristine Lilly	USA	130
3. Birgit Prinz		GER     128
4. Abby Wambach		USA	125
5. Christine Sinclair	CAN	117
6. Julie Fleeting	SCO	107
7. Elisabetta Vignotto	ITA	107
8. Michelle Akers	USA	105
9. Carolina Morace	ITA	105
10. Tiffeny Millbret	USA	100

 

Found some other notable NT scorers (don't know their overall rank):

Germany's second best scorer is Heidi Mohr (83)
France's top scorer is Marinette Pichon (82)
Brazil's is Marta (80) as of July 2011
Japan's is Homare Sawa (80) as of July 2011
Sweden's is Hanna Ljungberg (72)

 

Sun Wen, China should probably be up there somewhere. She scored accoring to Wikipedia 120 goals (according to the China WNT page) or 106 goals (according to the Sun Wen page) for China. So we need a better source

 

Thank you. How could I forget to check her.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-10/03/content_270035.htm
http://translate.google.com/transla...6523s.shtml&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=749&prmd=imvns
Both seem like reliable sources (Chinese news media) showing 106 so let's go with that for now.

Updated list:

Code:

1. Mia Hamm		USA	158
2. Kristine Lilly	USA	130
3. Birgit Prinz		GER     128
4. Abby Wambach		USA	125
5. Christine Sinclair	CAN	117
6. Julie Fleeting	SCO	107
   Elisabetta Vignotto	ITA	107
[B]8. Sun Wen              CHN     106[/B] 
9. Michelle Akers	USA	105
   Carolina Morace	ITA	105
11. Tiffeny Milbrett	USA	100

 

For the US, the next best total after Milbrett belongs to Cindy Parlow (75).

For Sweden, after Ljungberg, Pia Sundhage and Lena Videkull share 2nd place with 71 goals each.

Charmaine Hooper is Canada's 2nd with 71.

These five players along with the others mentioned would be next on the list according to this July 2009 article by the US Soccer Federation. If for now we assume no other player has reached around this amount of goals in the last two years, we have:

Code:

1. Mia Hamm		USA	158
2. Kristine Lilly	USA	130
3. Birgit Prinz		GER     128
4. Abby Wambach		USA	125
5. Christine Sinclair	CAN	117
6. Julie Fleeting	SCO	107
   Elisabetta Vignotto	ITA	107
8. Sun Wen              CHN     106
9. Michelle Akers	USA	105
   Carolina Morace	ITA	105
11. Tiffeny Milbrett	USA	100
12. Heidi Mohr	        GER	 83
13. Marinette Pichon	FRA	 82
14. Marta	        BRA	 80
    Homare Sawa	        JPN	 80
16. Cindy Parlow	USA	 75
17. Hanna Ljungberg	SWE	 72
18. Pia Sundhage	SWE	 71
    Lena Videkull 	SWE	 71
    Charmaine Hooper	CAN	 71

 

That's quite good, considering how much all those info are "hidden"

It's really a shame that we can only know goals with National Teams and we can't add up goals with clubs, because this favours players who were in NTs that get to play more often (I guess no-one could question the fact that, at least at some times, USA team got to play more international matches than other teams).
It's worth noting, on the other hand, that adding goals with clubs would favour players who played in less competitive leagues, where you can score more easily and more often, or players who played a lot of different competitions with their clubs (in continents with cups like Champion's League or Libertadores Cup).

About the reliability of sources, since I studied philology at the University, i have to warn you that I am afraid that, when original data are so scarce, most sources copy their info from one another...
But any effort to find more must be appreciated.

 

I'm quite aware of the reliability, or lack thereof, of the info with so few sources. I've been a Wikipedia editor for a few years. I'd be willing to tackle this and double check match after match records for each player. It shouldn't be so titanic a task, especially if other interested posters help, and also because of the relatively recent nature of the data we're after. This list is just a starting point.

 

You're right, it's not an impossible task. I am afraid I can't give help just now, because of being a little busy with work (just the time of quickly answering threads ), but I'll be happy to help later, if needed (in some weeks I should have a little more spare time).

Anyway I wonder if single natonal football associations' sites have got any statistics on best scorers with clubs in their leagues. It would be nice to know it.

 

This page lists every goal by date, opponent and venue for Mia Hamm's goals from #1 thru #107, prior to her breaking the all-time record in 1999 which at the time belonged to E. Vignotto: http://www.womensoccer.com/biogs/hamm.html Finding #108 thru #158 should be easy after that.

You can see that she had scored no less than 8 hat-tricks up to that point.

 

i think the list is missing Han Duan of China. According to wikipedia, she has 101 goals.

 

Not to take anything away from the admirable women on the list, but the whole statistic is pretty bogus, depending as it does on the number of games played, the quality of the team you play for, and the quality of the opponent, just to name a few factors that have nothing to do with the athlete herself.

To give just one example, 16 (!) of Julie Fleeting's career goals came in a 27-0 rout of the Isle of Man. Take that one game away, and she drops from sixth to twelfth on the all-time list.

 

Duly noted. Thank you very much. The BBC and ESPN state the same.

Code:

1. Mia Hamm		USA	158
2. Kristine Lilly	USA	130
3. Birgit Prinz		GER     128
4. Abby Wambach		USA	125
5. Christine Sinclair	CAN	117
6. Julie Fleeting	SCO	107
   Elisabetta Vignotto	ITA	107
8. Sun Wen              CHN     106
9. Michelle Akers	USA	105
   Carolina Morace	ITA	105
[B]11. Han Duan		CHN	101[/B]
12. Tiffeny Milbrett	USA	100
13. Heidi Mohr	        GER	 83
14. Marinette Pichon	FRA	 82
15. Marta	        BRA	 80
    Homare Sawa	        JPN	 80
17. Cindy Parlow	USA	 75
18. Hanna Ljungberg	SWE	 72
19. Pia Sundhage	SWE	 71
    Lena Videkull 	SWE	 71
    Charmaine Hooper	CAN	 71

Of course numbers are just numbers, and then one can decide on the quality and significance of the data by objectively (or subjectively) analyzing things further. But you have to start somewhere. The record is set. It's not Ms. Fleeting's fault that the a really weak team decided to compete that day, and she was the only one that scored the 16 goals in that match, at the international level, not anyone else. Thus, it adds to her individual record. We're only talking straight amount of international goals here, not where and how they were scored.

 

Well, yes, but I almost want to put an asterisk after each number, the way they do to note that, say, baseball players in other eras played fewer games in a season or a track record is unofficial because it was wind-aided.

For another example, Marta is handicapped by how few international matches Brazil plays. She only has 72 caps in her 10-year career, so it's pretty amazing she's even as high on the list as she is. But if she scored at the same rate but played as many games per year as Mia Hamm did (16+), she'd have 180 career goals (already!) and there'd be far fewer arguments about the best all-time women's player.

 

That's one of the reasons why I would really like to add goals with clubs to the statistics. It would introduce other distorsions, tied to the huge differences between leagues, but at least it would give a more equal base of matches played (if the numbers would be big enough, the weight of difference would be less; not sure if I manage to explain well what I mean [you can easily see that english is not my native language, so it's somehow difficult for me to explain complicated subjects]).

Anyway, I guess info about goals with clubs are too much difficult to find, so this ranking with NTs + clubs is probably impossible. But it's a shame, because I guess it would be much more meaningful.

 

I do get your point. All we're doing is compiling a list. We can make similar lists for goals per match ratio, including only major competitions, etc. and arrive to more "meaningful" data.

No one looks at Pete Rose's career hit total and declares him the greatest baseball player of all time because he is at the top of the all-time list. But the list is still there to inform us of who made the most hits. There is a place for every record in every category.

 

I agree with you ChaChaFut, but I guess that the idea of completing the list with a goals per match ratio is great and would answer most of the doubts about the meaningfullness of reading such a ranking.

Everyone posting here made good points, but I guess such a list would be quite interesting anyway.

I now wonder: in single national federations' sites is there normally some kind of record history of previous leagues, with maybe the top scorers of past seasons?

 

an exemple of what I mean: I am referring to a simple source, like Homare Sawa's Wikipedia's page; obviously data should be checked with other sources.

According to Wikipedia, Homare Sawa scored 80 goals with National Team, 79 in the first part of her japanese career in Yomiuri Beleza, than she moved in USA with the WUSA and when WUSA folded came back in Japan and scored 40 goals in 5 other seasons with NTV Beleza. She then played in USA again in 2009-2010 with WPS, scoring 6 goals in 30 matches, and she finally was back in Japan in 2011 playing this year for INAC Kobe Leonessa.

I can't read japanese, but I guess any japanese friends could help us about this by reading the Nadeshiko league official page, if asked in the Nadeshiko thread, if we want to know how many goals she has scored this year with INAC.
It's probably most difficult to know about the WUSA period, I am not sure if WUSA statistics can still be found somewhere, but Sawa surely scored some goals for Atlanta Beat (and she's said to have played for Denver Diamonds too).

Anyway, just with Wikipedia data, we can already assign a total of 205 total goals to Sawa. You guess it's so impossible completing these data and doing something similar for the other players in the top 20?