Top 50 Big Game Scorers – 50-41

And the countdown begins. 1071 scorers, 62 years, and 1,931 goals. This is the countdown of the Top 50 Big Game Scorers. To see the other pages with rules and workings, click HERE

Treble Dutch – All three of these players have scored in major finals, but only two make the Top 50

50. Karl-Heinz Riedle (Germany) 1983-2001 / 12 Points – 4 Goals

To kick things off is the first of many German players to feature in the list (see the stats section later). Riedle enjoyed spells with Werder Bremen, Lazio, Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool before finishing his illustrious career at Fulham in 2001. Not someone that would jump out as a big game player to fans of the Premier League, the Germany International popped up with some notable goals in his career. The most memorable being his brace in the final of the 1997 Champions League. Playing for Borussia Dortmund against holders Juventus, complete with new signing Zidane behind Vieri and Boksic (a frontline so good that Del Piero was only on the bench), Riedle put Dortmund 2-0 up after just 34 minutes. Del Piero got one back before Lars Ricken’s classy lob sealed the win for the German team to give Rielde and new Aston Villa manager, Paul Lambert, winners medals. His other big game goals came in the Semi Final of Euro ’92, when his brace was once again the difference as Germany beat hosts Sweden 3-2, which was enough to see him share the golden boot with three strikes overall, though they would lose famously to Denmark in the final. He also scored in the 1989 German Cup Final for Werder Bremen in a 4-1 defeat against future club Dortmund. Sadly for Riedle, he’s not even the highest ranked Karl Heinz on the list.

49. Ruud Gullit (Netherlands) 1979-1998 / 12 points – 4 goals

Not an out and out striker, he was once described as the Dutch Duncan Edwards due to his versatility and quality. He eventually settled as a number 10 and certainly delivered on the big stage. The former PSV Eindhoven and Chelsea star is best remembered for his time in Italy with AC Milan where he linked up with fellow Dutchmen Rijkaard and van Basten. And it’s with Milan that he scored a brace in a 4-0 thumping of Hagi’s Steaua Bucharest in the the European Cup Final of 1989, after scoring in the Semi Final demolition of Real Madrid (5-0). However, the goal he’s most famous for, and on perhaps his biggest stage was in the Final of Euro 88 with that iconic header (before an even more iconic volley by his strike partner). The fact that such a great footballing nation has only won one title (I’m not talking about England), makes this goal even more important. The dreadlocks also made it look a lot cooler.

48. Horst Hubresch (Germany) 1971-1986 / 12 points – 4 goals

Not quite the household name as Gullit (unless you lived in the Hubresch house), the tall West Germany Centre Forward was known for his aerial prowess, and it was with his head that he scored two of his biggest goals, winning the Euro 1980 final with a 2-1 win over Belgium. The second goal was in the 88th minute, to win the whole tournament for the Germans. The surprising thing is that he’d never been capped before 1980, not that nerves seemed to have affected him. Just a few months earlier, he also scored two semi final goals in the European Cup as Hamburg made the final against Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest, only to get injured on the way to defeat. Described as The Monster, the big frontman also showed his big game temperament with the winning penalty in the 1982 World Cup Semi Final with France, a game famous for Harald Schumacher’s assisination attempt on Patrick Battiston.

47. Fernando Torres (Spain) 2001-Current / 12 points – 4 goals

The first current player to feature on the list, El Nino hasn’t had a good time of it since his £50m move to Chelsea in January 2011, but the green shoots of recovery started to show near the end of the 2011-12 season. Torres’ big game goals have a neat symmetry to them, scoring a Champions League Semi Final goal for Liverpool in 2008, followed that summer by a goal in the European Championships Final. Four long years passed without any other big game goals, including a miserable 2010 World Cup, but a change in fortune came in the Second Leg of the 2011-12 Champions League Semi-Final away at Barcelona. Ten man Chelsea were under immense pressure from the European Champions, with the score level on aggregate at 2-2 but Chelsea ahead on away goals. This was a big game, and this was big pressure – then came the moment of redemption, after Torres lost the ball on the left wing, he found himself out of position, just in time for a clearance to fall at his feet with half the pitch and no opponent between him and Victor Valdes. If he’d missed then you would have feared for his future and mental stability, but Torres went round the Barca keeper to confirm Chelsea’s progression to the final, and give Gary Neville a man crush. Just a few short months later, he became the first player to score in consecutive European Championships Finals, as Spain brushed Italy aside 4-0. That made it three tournaments in a row for the Spanish national team, but only possible with Torres’ winner in the 2008 Final against Germany.

46. Amancio Amaro (Spain) 1958-1976 / 12 points – 5 goals

Moving on neatly from the man that revived Spain’s fortunes to a man that had a big hand in their first International title. Amancio Amaro had the bad luck to join Real Madrid in 1962, just after they’d won five consecutive European Cups. He had to wait until the 1965-66 season before the club won ‘their trophy’ again, scoring the equaliser in the final against Partizan Belgrade in a 2-1 win for the Madrid giants. Three semi final goals in the same competition cement his inclusion, and for his country, it was the extra time winner in the 1964 European Nations Cup (effectively Euro ’64) that proved the most decisive. Playing against Hungary, Amancio struck in the 113th minute to give Spain a 2-1 lead and put them in the final.

45. José Águas (Portugal) 1948-1964 / 12 points – 5 goals

An essential part of Benfica’s golden era alongside Eusebio, Águas scored in both the finals of the 1961 European Cup and the following year’s tournament. A prolific scorer ( 290 goals in 281 games for the Lisbon club), he won the golden boot in Portugal on five occasions. The first big game goal that he scored was in the first leg of the 1961 European Cup Semi-Final, in a 3-0 win over Rapid Vienna. He repeated the trick again in the second leg, this time ending in a 1-1 draw. In the final, Benfica would face the mighty Barcelona, who were hungrily looking for their first European Cup (they’d have to wait a while longer). Containing the legendary Hungarian trio Kubala, Kocsis and Czibor, the Catalan’s went 1-0 up, only for Águas to show his big game mettle once more and equalise, and take his tally to 11 for the tournament – wining him the golden boot. Benfica went on to win that game 3-2 to win their first European Cup. And the following year he was at it again. He scored Benfica’s goal in a 2-1 defeat to Danny Blanchflower’s Tottenham to put Benfica through to the final on aggregate (4-3), where they’d face another Spanish giant – this time it was Real Madrid, and they wanted their trophy back. Despite a hat trick by Ferenc Puskas, Benfica won 5-3 with Águas once again scoring his team’s first goal. The following year Benfica reached the final for a third successive time, but without an injured Águas, they would lose to AC Milan.

44. Santillana (Spain) 1970-1988 / 12 points – 6 goals

In what appears to be a tribute to Iberian footballers, the next up is another Spanish striker. Similar to Amancio in terms of unlucky timings, Santillana (Carlos Alonso Gonzalez) played for Real Madrid for 17 seasons, only to miss out on the European Cup. Not that he’ll be too worried after 9 league titles, two UEFA Cups and four Copa del reys. It was in the UEFA Cup Finals that he scored two of his biggest goals, with the second in a 3-0 Final win over Hungary’s Videoton (me neither) in 1985, followed a year later with the final goal in a 5-1 lesson for FC Cologne. Of course his lack of European Cup medals wasn’t for the want of trying, with Santillana scoring in two semi final goals in 1980, one the following year, and then again just before retirement in 1987. It wasn’t to be for the talented front man (8th in the all time Spanish league goalscoring list), but it wasn’t a bad career to be fair.

43. Jairzinho (Brazil) 1959-1982 / 12.5 points – 3 goals

The first entry from the legendary 1970 team was arguably their most important player. One of only three players in history to score in every game in a World Cup, Jairzinho stood out, even in the team considered by many to be the greatest of all time – certainly the most entertaining. And it’s from the 1970 World Cup that he scored two of his biggest goals, firstly in the Semi Final against Uruguay, and then he scored the 3rd for Brazil in the final against Italy. Whilst he hero worshipped Garrincha (whom he replaced for Brazil), he wasn’t short of his own confidence, claiming that FIFA had awarded him the ‘Best Body on the Planet’ prize – an award that doesn’t exist, at least not in FIFA (as seen here). I’m not sure whether or not he was a comedy genius or very arrogant but no one can deny he was one of the best of all time. His other major goal came in the 1974 World Cup Final Group stages – a winner against bitter rivals Argentina no less. He wasn’t much of a coach, getting sacked by Gabon in his only Managerial role, he did however make up for this by spotting a 14 year old Brazilian lad by the name of Ronaldo, recommending him to his old club Cruzeiro.

42. Coutinho (Brazil) 1953-1972 / 12.5 points 5 goals

Antonio Wilson Vieira Honorio (better known as Coutinho) is the football equivalent of Buzz Aldrin. Sure, a lot of people know his name, but a lot more don’t and should do. Because Countinho’s Neil Armstrong was a fella by the name of Pele. Coutinho was voted Santos’ best ever player – if you exclude Pele. He scored over 370 goals for the team, and was one of the most important players in their team during their golden era of the early 60s. And few had more impact on the team. Of the two Copa Libertadores titles they won in 1962 and 1963, Coutinho scored a whopping five final goals (two in 62/three in 63). It’s a slightly misleading stat as there were three finals in 1962 and two in 1963, but he was certainly a big game player. Just to put it into context, Pele scored three goals in the same five games.

41. Gabriel Batistuta (Argentina) 1988-2005 / 13 points 4 goals

One for the fans of 90’s Football Italia programme next. Gabriel ‘Batigol’ Batistuta was arguably the most complete centre forward of his era. Comfortable on either foot and handy in the air, he had a cannon of a shot on him. He spent the best years of his career with unfashionable Fiorentina, who somehow kept him for ten years, resulting in him not playing in the biggest European club games. One of the very few modern era footballers to play for both River Plate and hated rivals Boca Juniors (in that order), his biggest goals came in the blue and white of Argentina. Although he was a regular scorer in World Cups, he never scored in the last two rounds (he was at least the first player to score a hat trick at two World Cups). As a result, his big game scorer entries are all down to Copa America goals. In 1991, the tournament was decided by a final group table instead of a knock out round. Batistuta’s Argentina beat Colombia and Brazil along with a draw against Chile. Batistuta scored the winner against Brazil in a 3-2 victory, and the winner in a 2-1 win over Colombia – a goal that both won the tournament for Argentina, and the golden boot for the talented striker. Skip forward two years and it was Batigol that scored the decisive goals again to win the title for his country, with a brace against Mexico in a 2-1 win.  Those aside, he also scored in both legs of the 1996 Coppa Italia Final to bring glory and silverware to Florence. They repaid him with a statue.

Numbers 40 to 31 to follow

Player Comparison: Carlos Tevez vs Sergio Aguero

Argentinian? Check. Prolific striker? Check. Skilful and small enough to be described as diminutive? Check. That’s basis enough to be the next in line for the player comparison series

Contenders

First up is keen golfer, Carlos ‘Carlitos’ Tevez. Born and raised in the tough Buenos Aries area of Fort Apache, Tevez has played for some of the biggest clubs in World football – Boca Juniors, Corinthians, Manchester United, Manchester City and of course, West Ham United. Tevez made the controversial move across Manchester in the summer of 2009, after winning two league titles and the Champions League with United. He was never prolific in his time with the Old Trafford club, often played out wide to accommodate Cristiano Ronaldo, that would change though at City. When he signed, City had just finished 10th.

When Sergio ‘Kun’ Aguero joined in the summer of 2011, City had finished 3rd and qualified for the Champions League, and had just won the FA Cup. Signed from Atletico Madrid (where he was Fernando Torres’ replacement), he joined City as a replacement for the wantaway Captain Tevez. A child prodigy, he made his professional debut at just 15 years of age for Independiente in the Argentina top flight, breaking the record of future father in law Diego Maradona, and made a big money move to Spain in 2006. After scoring 101 goals in 234 goals for the captial club, only a handful of teams could afford both his transfer fee and his wages, fortunately for City and the Premier League, his new club was one of them. Born just 13 miles from Tevez, Aguero is four years younger.

Rules

As usual, the statistical comparison will be based on their form in the league, comparing Aguero’s 2011-12 season with Tevez’s debut season with the club. I’ll be looking into the variables and will take a look at their international form as well. For queries on how the calculations are made, see the Rules and Workings page on the menu bar above.

Stats

First and foremost, the all important measure for a striker – goals scored. Tevez came into his debut City season on the back of a disappointing season fro Man Utd, scoring only 5 league goals (14 in all competitions) after the arrival of Dimitar Berbatov – his worst return since his debut season for Boca. Sergio Aguero was fresh from his best scoring season, hitting 20 La Liga goals (27 in all competitions). The starting point for both was very different, in terms of their own form and the team they were joining. But surprisingly, they had near identical scoring records, both scoring 23 league goals in their debut season’s for the club.

In terms of goals per game they both have around a goal every 1.5 games, which is prolific in anyone’s book (apart from whatever book Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi read). Looking a bit closer into the strike rates, and going down to minutes per goal, Tevez actually played almost 300 mintues more than his younger compatriot, or over three games. Advantage Kun.

Next up is the lifeblood of this site – looking at the standard of opposition that the players perform against. Those familiar with the rest of the site (are probably related to me), know that there are two main measures, firstly the average rank of the opposition per each of their goals, and the second is splitting the opponents into a ranges – Top 6, Middle 8, and Bottom 6. Basically, it’s a check to see if a player is a Big game player, Flat track bully or Big game bottler.

Once again, it’s pretty even on this front. Both players have pretty similar averages, with Tevez scoring against teams ranked on average of 11.52, to Aguero’s 11.13 – Tevez’s extra two goals against the bottom 6 means he has a slightly worse average. Advantage Aguero again. Both players scored four goals against the Top 6 – Aguero against 2nd to 6th, and Tevez against 1st to 4th and 6th. Looking a little closer though and Tevez regains a bit of ground, three of his four Top 6 goals were scored against eventual champions Chelsea, and each time they were decisive goals. In the 2-1 win at the City of Manchester Stadium, Tevez scored the winning goal, and in the 4-2 win at Stamford Bridge, Tevez scored a brace. Big game player? His other goal against Top 6 teams was in a 3-1 win over Villa. Aguero’s goals against the Top 6 were against Man Utd (2nd), Spurs (4th), Newcastle (5th) and Chelsea in 6th.

So far, pretty even – with Aguero just about ahead. They’re both goal scorers first and foremost, but how much did they do for their team? Well there’s few in the game that work as hard as Tevez, in terms of closing down opponents, but equally, anyone watching Aguero will notice just how good his movement off the ball is. However, that’s not something I can measure, so how about assists instead?

Once again it’s incredibly close in terms of numbers, Tevez got a credible 7 assists in his debut season, compared to Aguero’s 8. It should be remembered though, that Man City scored 73 goals in 2009-10 compared to the 93 last season. Tevez in general provided assists against the poorer teams, with five coming against the likes of Burnley, Hull, Wigan and Wolves. He did however almost embarrass old team Manchester United with two assists in the 4-3 defeat at Old Trafford – a game famous for Michael Owen’s late winner. Aguero on the other hand had a pretty good average ranked opponent per assist, with 9.75. Only one was against the bottom 6, with most against the mid table teams. Like Tevez, he also managed to get two assists against Top opposition, creating Balotelli’s early goal in the 2-1 defeat to 6th placed Chelsea, and then an assist in the 2-0 win over 5th placed Newcastle.

Whilst Aguero’s slightly ahead on points so far, it has to be remembered that whilst his City finished in 1st, Tevez finished in 5th. So how about their importance to the team? Well on the basis of points won from their goals (see Rules and Workings), it’s a pretty convincing win for Tevez.

That’s pretty comprehensive. Whilst Aguero’s debut season has been very impressive, in terms of their importance to the team, Tevez was miles ahead. He scored almost 32% of City’s goals in 2009-10 compared to Aguero’s 25%. And it’s a similar story in points won, with Tevez winning 22% of the team points, compared to just 8% for Aguero. So that’s another one back for Tevez, but at the end of the day, Aguero did score THAT goal (worth 2 points for those interested, and a Title).

So that’s the stats taken care of, anyone wanting to know a bit more? Well Tevez scored five penalties to Aguero’s three, Tevez scored his 23 goals with four shots less (126 to 130) whilst both average one shot on target in each of the games against the Top 6 teams. They’re pretty even, even to that level of detail.

Team mates

I’ll leave the commentary light on this one, just listing the usual line up for each season:

In the space of just two seasons, there’s been a pretty drastic change in line up, with just three players in the strongest XI for both seasons. Comparing the midfields in particular that each played with it’s all the more impressive that Tevez managed 23 league goals and seven assists. The two that stand out in particular are the attacking midfielders – City Youth Teamers Stephen Ireland and Shaun Wright-Phillips may have enjoyed some good times with the club, but those days had long passed by this point. Compare them to Silva and Nasri, and you’re an idiot. Each had multiple strike partners with Tevez partnering Adebayor, Santa Cruz and Bellamy at regular times each season, compared to Dzeko, Balotelli and Tevez for Aguero.

International

At the time of writing, it’s 15 goals in 36 caps for Aguero, and 13 in 59 for Tevez. That’s a pretty clear cut win for the younger striker right? Maybe not. Tevez has three World Cup goals to his name, and in the 2004 Olympic games (taken a lot more seriously in South America than here), he top scored with eight goals as Argentina won the Gold. As that was officially an Under 23 Tournament, those eight goals don’t count to his full tally. Both have three Copa America goals, and both scored in 2010’s 4-1 thrashing of Spain.

High Tens if you love Argentina

What Else?

Well the eagle eyed among you will have noticed that I’ve left out Tevez’s 2010-11 season stats, which were pretty important given that he was essentially the difference in qualifying for the Champions League and not. Why? Well I thought it was only fair to compare the debut season of each player, although Tevez did have an unfair advantage of 3 previous seasons in the Premier League.

When looking at his 2010-11 stats, he was once again responsible for 15 points, he scored 20 league goals in 31 games (which was enough to see him share the Golden Boot with Dimitar Berbatov), and he had an average opposition of 12.15 per goal, with a split of 6-11-3 for Bottom 6-Mid 8-Top 6 goals. Pretty consistent. He had six assists.

Conclusion
It’s fair to say that Manchester City’s recent past has been dominated by the two Argentinians. Tevez was key in changing both the mentality at the club and in qualifying for the Champions League. It was only once that qualification was complete that it was possible to attract players like Aguero. Robinho may have been been the marquis signing of City’s transformation into a superpower, but it was Tevez’s signing that signalled the intent. Not only were they signing a world class talent, but it’s who they were signing him from.

Of course moving from Top 4 to Champions is another thing altogether, and although he helped near the end of the season, Tevez’s contribution to City’s greatest triumph of modern times was pretty small compared to Aguero. Although he didn’t dominate the team like Tevez had previously, he was the top scorer and he scored the goal to win the title. That one moment is the biggest single contribution that any player made tonL City’s title win. All the work before hand, including Kompany’s winner against United would have counted for zero.

So in what is no way a cop out, it’s a draw!!

They should try and keep them both – they’re pretty handy together:

Serie A Season Review: 2011-12 Part 2

Part 2 of the Serie A Season Review focuses more on the team stats, Part 1 can be found here with the individual player stats.

With Juventus winning the Title in such commanding fashion, it’s to be expected that they will dominate the Team Statistics. They didn’t rely on one outstanding performer, but rather it was a team effort, illustrated best by the fact that their top scorer only hit 10 league goals.

Clean Sheets:

Since the first part of the Serie A review focused on the glory boys knocking the ball into the net, it’s only fair that we start with the defences. And it’s no surprise that Juventus come out on top. Not only did they keep the most clean sheets with 21, they also had the most against the Top 6 teams with a very decent five shut outs in ten games (along with Napoli). They say that a title is built on the defence, so to go a whole season unbeaten, means it must be pretty tight and that’s certainly illustrated below. Every team from 2nd Placed Milan to 6th placed Inter were kept out on one occasion. In fact, Bologna and Catania were the only teams not to be kept out by the Juventus defence.

As well as keeping the most against the top teams, they also had the highest (along with AC Milan) number against the struggling teams, recording 9 clean sheets in 12 games.

And speaking of AC Milan, they also had the highest number of clean sheets against the mid table teams, with 8 (along with Inter Milan and Cagliari). Ominously for them though, they only kept one clean sheet against the Top 6 teams in ten attempts. In what appears to be a similar scenario with Ibrahimovic’s scoring for them, they’re not so much flat track bullies, more big game bottlers.

Elsewhere, Cagliari had the worst ranked opponent per clean sheet with 14.40, meaning their defence was poor against decent opponents, their only one clean sheet against the Top 6 was against Udinese early on in the season in a 0-0 draw. Inter Milan continued to defy logic by keeping 8 clean sheets against the Middle 8 teams, yet somehow could only keep two clean sheets against the struggling teams.

Goals Scored:

An area where Juventus didn’t excel was in attack. Whilst it’s well documented that they didn’t rely on one player for goals, they had the weakest attack of all the Champions of the major European leagues:

• Real Madrid – 121 Goals
• Manchester City – 93 goals
• Ajax – 93 goals (34 game season)
• Borussia Dortmund – 80 goals (34 game season)
• FC Porto – 69 goals (30 game season)
• Montpellier – 68 goals

You get the idea. To be fair though, I should point out that AC Milan won the league with 65 goals in 2010-11, whilst Inter won it with 75 and 70 goals for the 2009-10 and 2008-09 seasons respectively. It’s not a high scoring league, though it’s far from the defensive based football that the stereotype suggests.

Despite only scoring 68 goals, Juve did make them count when it mattered. Along with Roma and Genoa, they scored the most goals against the Top 6 teams with 18. Once again, AC Milan’s inability to do it against the big teams is highlighted in this measurement. Whilst they scored 2.5 goals per game against the Bottom 6, and 2.2 goals per game against the Middle 8 teams, they scored a very poor 0.9 goals per game against the top teams. To put it into perspective, relegate Novara managed as many goals as AC Milan against the decent sides (albeit with 2 games more).

That’s bad, but not as bad as Chievo, who managed just three goals in the twelve games that they faced the best. Not that it will particularly worry them, as they finished in a respectable 10th place. If you were a Chievo fan though, you’d turn up to the big games knowing that it’s unlikely to end well for you.

And worse still is Cesena’s over recored of just 24 goals. Ouch.

Goals Conceded:

As you can see from the green below, this one (much like the losses one) is a pretty straight forward homage to Juventus again. Now I hate to concetrate so much on one team, but they are champions after going unbeaten, so fair’s fair. Least goals conceded, and the lowest against all ranges of opposition. The amazing thing about the Juve defence is that it is mainly the same players that played in 2010-11 when they let in a rather less impressive 47 goals on the way to finishing 7th. Praise must go to Antonio Conte, and it must also beg a question of why attacking players make such good defensive coaches (I’m thinking George Graham, and there’s probably more but the mind has gone blank).

Juventus aside, just look at Inter Milan’s record against the bottom 6 again. Shambolic springs to mind. Four of those were in a crazy 4-4 draw with Palermo and another four were in a crazy 4-3 defeat to Palermo.

Lazio had the worst average ranked opponent per goal conceded, with their defence actually performing better against the stronger teams. At the other end of the scale, Lecce conceded a lot of goals (56) but at least it was mainly to teams that finished above them. Their average of 8.13 was the highest.

Games Lost:

This is perhaps the most telling measurement when looking at AC Milan’s season. None were lost against the bottom teams, only one was lost against the mid table teams, but a massive 5 were lost against their Top 6 rivals. This is illustrated by their average ranked conqueror’s of 5.83, an average only bettered by Heerenveen’s 2.67 in the Eredivisie.

Cesena lost the most games against both the Top and Mid teams with 11 (out of 12) and 10 respectively. Not a surprise that they finished bottom of the league then. Whilst strangely, Bologna finished 9th despite being terrible against the Bottom 6 teams – losing five times.

Juventus. That’s a pret-ty good record. And i’ll give it a bit more praise when I compare them to the Arsenal invincibles of 2003-04.

Kudos to Chievo who despite being pretty rotten against the good teams, achieved their mid table respectibility by refusing to lose to the stragglers at the bottom of the table.

Failure to Score:

A new measure, and a new reason to slate AC Milan and their big game bottler status. As you can see, they had no trouble whatsoever against anyone outside the Top 6, but as well as losing five games to the big boys, they also failed to even score on four occasions.

Cesena managed to only score in 17 of their 38 games which you don’t need me to tell you is bad. Chievo’s inability to give their fans anything to cheer about when facing any one good is confirmed here, with a failure to score on 9 occasions against the Top 6 teams. Catania finished below them but still only failed to score against the Top 6 teams on two occasions – a total only bettered by the Champions.

And just to confirm why Juventus were deserved winners, and to highlight the importance of doing well against the teams around you, here’s a couple of mini leagues for your viewing pleasure:

Top 6 Mini League:

Bottom 6 Mini League:

That’s all I’ve got for the Serie A review for 2011-12 season. If you have any questions then please e-mail me or write in the comments box below.

Cheers,

Liam

Premier League Review:2011-2012 Part 2

The second part of the Premier League Season Review will focus mainly on the team stats, as well as defences. Part 1 can be found here.

Premier League Season Review 2011-12 Part 1: Team Stats

The importance of beating those around you –

In what was a famous season for Manchester City, it’s no surprise to see them feature prominently in the team stats, and the way they won the title was by being the best of the best. Looking at the Top 6 mini league table, they were deserved champions:

City had the most wins, least defeats, most goals (along with United), best goal difference, joint most clean sheets, and only failed to score in one game – the 1-0 defeat to Arsenal that appeared to have ended their Title Challenge. To highlight the importance of beating those around you, the top three places in the Top 6 mini table is the same as the full table. What is surprising is just how many goals there were – Man City put 6 past United, who in turn put 8 past Arsenal, who in turn put 5 past Spurs, who in turn put 5 past Newcastle……you get the idea. Chuck in Arsenal’s 5-3 against Chelsea, and Newcastle’s 3-0 over United, and this season saw unprecedented 105 goals in the 30 games between them – at a rate of 3.5 goals per game.

Similarly, the relegation places were also largely dependent on how teams did against their Bottom 6 rivals:

Both Wolves and Blackburn stuttered against the Bottom 6 teams, with just 2 wins each – this contributed largely to their relegation, indeed Blackburn can point to defeats to Wigan and Bolton in the final run in that led to their demise. The odd one out is Bolton. They actually topped the Bottom 6 mini league with a decent 21 points – however, they lost out largely due to Wigan and QPR’s amazing run against the Top 6 teams.

Big Game Winners – Manchester City with 8 wins against Top 6 and QPR who beat an average ranked opponent of 10.20

Not a massive surprise after the tables above, but just to confirm that Man City were the best against the Top 6 teams, or more specifically – 2nd to 6th. Man Utd clocked up 5 wins, whilst 3rd placed Arsenal managed four, with defeats of Man City, Spurs, Chelsea and Newcastle). The two Merseyside teams also both clocked up 4 wins against the Top 6, whilst Wigan and QPR punched above their weight with three wins each.

QPR had the highest ranked team per win with 10.20. Whilst three of these were against the Top 6 (Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea in a London treble), they also beat teams in the upper end of the Mid 8 with a 1-0 win against 7th placed Everton and a 3-2 home win over Liverpool. Mark Hughes may not be the most popular manager to the neutrals (ideas above his station perhaps?), but he certainly knows how to inspire his players. I for one gave them next to know chance of survival with 10 games to go but with 5 wins in that run, all against teams above them in the table, saw them stay up, and they very nearly showed their mentality for the big occasion on the final day of the season – 2-1 up at Man City with just minutes to go. We all know what happened then.

Bolton on the other hand were the Flat Track Bullies with an average ranked opponent of 15.10 for each of their 10 wins. In fact, they only won 3 games against teams outside of the Bottom 6 (Stoke, Liverpool and Everton). To confirm their status, they were one of only two teams not to record a win against the Top 6, along with Wolves who were also relegated. Man City won the most games against the Bottom 6 – winning all 12, but they certainly can’t be accused of being Bullies.

Big Game Scorers – Man City and Man Utd with 24 goals against Top 6 teams, Blackburn Rovers with an average opposition of 10.28 per goal.

Once again, it’ the big two that dominate the team stats in terms of totals – both hit 24 goals against the Top 6, with the famous 8-2 and 6-1 scorelines. Elsewhere, no surprise that Arsenal and Spurs are 3rd and 4th respectively, despite all of these teams having two less games against the Top 6 teams. Surprising a few teams were newly promoted Norwich with a decent 14 goals against the elite – as many as Chelsea and more than Newcastle.

Blackburn however, are a surprise. Despite getting relegated their 48 goals were on average against an opponent of 10.94. A lot of that is thanks to the 4-3 win over Arsenal and 3-2 win at Old Trafford. Their struggle to score against the Bottom 6 (14 was the joint lowest) meant that they suffered relegation, but at least they gave it a go in terms of attacking – unlike Aston Villa and Stoke, who both scored less than a goal a game.

In terms of Flat Track Bullies, West Brom had the lowest ranked opponent per goal of 13.44, just below Bolton. Whilst the Baggies scored 10 goals against the big teams, they scored almost half of their 45 against the strugglers in the Bottom 6. Man Utd had the most goals against the bottom teams, whilst Chelsea’s weighting of goals, leans very much to the poorer opponents.

Big Game Defences – City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Newcastle, QPR with 3 clean sheets vs Top 6, QPR with 9.57 Average Opponent per Clean Sheet

As seen earlier, there have been six teams to have kept three clean sheets against the Top 6. Surprisingly, one of them is not Man Utd who only managed one shut out against their rivals – the 3-0 win over an early season and weaker Spurs. Also surprisingly (If I hadn’t documented it above) is that QPR are one of the teams with three clean sheets against the Top teams – Chelsea, Newcastle and Spurs.

And those clean sheets for QPR helped give them the highest average of 9.57. Aside from the Top 6 teams, they also kept clean sheets against Everton (7th), Stoke (14th), Swansea (11th) and Wolves (20th). They actually had a worse defensive record under Mark Hughes, but he did keep them up to be fair to the former Welsh Wizard.

The teams with 10 clean sheets or more were led by surprise package Swansea who had an average ranked opponent of 11.29 for their 14 clean sheets. They were behind only Top 6 teams Man Utd, Man City and Newcastle in the number of clean sheets, and they managed shut outs against Liverpool (twice), Newcastle and Man City.

At the other end of the scale, Blackburn only kept three clean sheets (as did Bolton) but they had the lowest ranked opponent per clean sheet – with 15.00. Man Utd’s defence did have the markings of Big Game Bottlers – although they had the most clean sheets, they had the same number against the Top 6 as Bolton and Stoke. They had the most against the Bottom 6 with nine.

How about the goals conceded table I hear you ask. See below:

Man Utd had the best average ranked opponent per goal conceded – though that’s largely down to the seven they conceded against their beloved city rivals. City had the best defence in terms of goals conceded, and also the least against the Top 6 with just 9. Stoke had the worst record against the Bottom 6 with 20 conceded – to add to the worst attack – Go Stoke! The bottom three had the worst defences, with Bolton suffering particularly against the big boys.

Failure to Score – Man City only failed to score once against the Top 6, whilst Man Utd only failed to score in three games.

The barrel of laughs at Aston Villa is perhaps best illustrated by the number of times they failed to hit the back of the net – a whopping 15 times, even Wolves only failed to score on 11 occasions. Swansea matched Villa’s 15 but at least played some good football – much to Liverpool’s liking.

Not only did Bolton concede the most goals against the Top 6, they also failed to score the most times against them as well. Not gonna be a problem next season for them as they’ll undoubtedly be one of the big teams in the Championship.

And that’s just about that for the Team Stats and Premier League review. It’s fair to say that Man City were deserved winners based on how they performed against their rivals, whilst Man Utd showed that you can win it by beating the teams you’re supposed to beat – after all, they were only seconds away from lifting their 20th league title.

I’ll be adding the same reviews for the other league’s in the coming weeks.

Cheers,

Liam

Premier League Review: 2011-2012 Part 1

Well that was quite the season. Regarded by many as the best in the Premier League’s 20 year history, we were treated to goals galore, last day drama, and a few surprise packages (Swansea, Norwich, Newcastle), whilst there was still plenty of familiarity with Scholes, and Henry’s names returning to the scoresheet, and Joey Barton acting like a prat.

Throughout the season I’ve been attempting to identify who are the big game players and flat track bullies based on the opponent that they’ve scored against, provided an assist against, or kept a clean sheet against. Whilst the season has been in play, I’ve based the stats on the position of the opponent at the time of play. So for example, when Edin Dzeko scored 4 goals away at Spurs, it was against a Bottom 6 team as they had a poor start to the season. Now that the season is over,  we can now look at the performances based on both the final league positions and the time of play. Edin will be pleased about that.

For queries on calculations, please see the “Rules and Workings” section at the top menu. This explains the averages, the ranges and points per goal workings. It’s not rocket science, but should answer any questions.

Premier League Season Review 2011-12 Part 1: Goalscoring

Goals versus Top 6 Teams – Wayne Rooney 8 goals based on final rankings. Robin van Persie with 7 goals based on positions at the time of play.

Robin van Persie won the golden boot with an impressive 30 league goals, and based on the opposition at the time of play, he also had the most goals versus Top 6 teams – big game mentality from a player in an often struggling team. However, based on the Final League Standings, it’s England’s very own Wayne Rooney that scored the most against the Premier League’s elite.

He started the season in blistering form as Man United won their first five games. In that five match run were big games against Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea, and Rooney thrived. A hat trick in the famous 8-2 win over The Gunners, and a goal against both Spurs (3-0 at home) and Chelsea (3-1 at Old Trafford) meant that he’d already passed last season’s total of just three goals against the Top 6 teams. And it was still September. As with his team, his form dipped in the mid season, though a couple in the 3-3 draw at Chelsea (pens) kept up his goal record against the best teams. The last of his goals came in the 3-1 win at 4th placed Spurs. Well played Rooney.

But, it could be argued that van Persie performed to a higher level against the top teams. Whilst he got one less than Rooney, he scored all of his goals for a weaker team (19 points weaker). The hat trick away at Chelsea in the 5-3 win was when Arsenal were in 7th. He also scored home and away against Man Utd, as well as goals against Spurs and Newcastle. At the time of play, all of these goals were against Top 6 teams, whilst the early season Arsenal and Spurs that Rooney scored against were very weakened versions of the teams that finished 3rd and 4th. On top of that, two of Rooney’s eight were from the penalty spot, whilst van Persie’s were all from open play. Both players also scored a brace against Liverpool (van Persie away).

Elsewhere, Dzeko’s four at White Hart Lane gives his number a kinder gloss. Spurs were bottom at the time of play. As a player, he swang from one extreme to the other – hitting two at Old Trafford in the 6-1 win, and then failing to bother any other Top 6 team from that point on – preferring the Bottom 6 opponents (although the goal against QPR did have a big game feel to it).

Nikica Jelavic proved to be a great January signing for Everton with 4 goals against the Top 6 teams, including a brace at Old Trafford that had a massive impact on the whereabouts of the title. In fact, he’s such a big game player, that the worst team he scored against was 12th. Similarly, Ashley Young just couldn’t be bothered against the smaller teams, with 4 of his 6 goals, coming against the Top 6.

Honourable Mentions to –Yakubu, who almost punched above his weight, Clint Dempsey with 6 from midfield, and Grant Holt with 5 against the best in his debut Premier League season. Even if he has turned into a bit of a diva since. And Steven Fletcher managed to notch away at Spurs, Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool, whilst also scoring against 5th placed Newcastle – despite being in the worst team in the league.

Highest Average Opponent per Goal – Jermain Defoe 9.27 (Final Positions), and Mario Balotelli 8.77 at the time of play

Last year’s winner was Rafael van der Vaart with a very impressive average ranked opponent of 7.46 for each of his 13 league goals. All of this in a debut season as well. This year, for those players with 10 goals of more (Jelavic had 7.33 on 9 goals). This year, there was nothing even close to that this year. But there has to be a winner, and despite not playing as many games as he would have liked, once again, it’s an England striker who has the big game player tag, with the highest rank opponent per goal – Jermain Defoe with 9.27.

Although he only scored three against the Top 6 teams, only two were against the stragglers at the bottom (Wolves and Bolton), whilst the majority of his goals against Middle 8 teams were in the top half of the table – Liverpool (8th), Fulham (9th). The goals that pushed his average up though were against 1st place Man City (3-2 defeat) and 2nd placed Man Utd – Peter Crouch is the only other player in the league to have managed that this season.

The only other player in double figures with an average under 10 was the Yak. Blackburn must have fed the Yak a lot (Chicken?) becuase he scored 17 goals for them this season, despite being relegated. The big striker scored twice in the unlikely wins against 2nd placed Man Utd, and 3rd placed Arsenal, as well as scoring against eventual Champions League winners Chelsea on the final day.

Mad Mario Balotelli had the highest ranked opponent per goal at the time of play, and with goals against Man Utd (2), Spurs, Chelsea and Newcastle, the only team he failed to score against in the Top 6 was Arsenal. His goals in the second half of the season slowed down (8/5 split) but he showed his big game temperement in the title decider against QPR, with an assist for Aguero. He’s been troublesome, audacious, hilarious and brilliant at times this season.

Honourable Mentions to – Jelavic just missed the cut with 9 goals, but his 7.33 was a great effort. That rating was matched by Ashley Young as well. Steven Gerrard only scored 5 league goals, but they were against an average of 6.80. Less goals but a better ranking were another Everton window signing – Steven Pienaar (6.50 – 4 Goals) and Wigan’s Shaun Maloney (5.0 – 3 goals) who specialised in the big games in that amazing escape from relegation.

Value of Goals – Robin van Persie, 30 goals – 24 Points

Last season saw West Brom’s Peter Odemwingie pick up this award with 17 points worth of goals. I can reveal that this season has seen a higher number of points won from a single player. And it’s really no surprise who.

Yep, van Persie wins another award, to go with the golden boot and the joint Top 6 Top Scorers. His 30 goals were worth a massive 24 points to Arsenal – 34.29% of their 70 points. That’s huge for a team in the Top 4 as you’d expect goals throughout the side as with United and City. It will be a real shame for the Premier League if he leaves England this summer, and it’ll be a complete kick in the nuts to Arsenal, for who he’s become so important. I wouldn’t go as far as to say they’re a one man team, but it’s hard to see anyone else in the four leagues I’ve covered this season get anywhere near that amount. 

But.

He’s not the most important player to team, as far as percentages anyway. Blackburn’s Yakubu’s 17 goals were worth a very decent 13 points, which was worth almost 42% of Blackburn’s points. They were relegated in the end, but he can lay claim to being more of a one man team than van Persie – albeit a far less successful team.

Honourable Mentions to – Grant Holt again, with a point per goal for his 15, in a debut top flight season. Papiss Cisse also won a point per goal, and his tally of 13 only began in January. Big things are expected of him next season. And once again, Steven Fletcher’s name pops up – his goals won almost 35% of Wolves points.

We’ve seen big game performances from Robin van Persie, Wayne Rooney, Mario Balotelli and Jermain Defoe, but for every big game player, there’s a flat Track Bully or Big Game Bottler.

Premier League Bullies

Normally I’d only look at the players with a poor average opponent with 10 goals or more, and that’s to come shortly, but below is a list of players with 5+ goals, all of which have been against the lower tier of opponents:

Berbatov finished his Manchester United career with 7 league goals – only one of them was against a top half team (Fulham, won 5-0). This continues his knack of scoring against the lesser teams in the Premier League. Last year he was the joint top scorer, but the hat trick against Liverpool aside (they were outside the Top 6 at the time), he never bothered the Top 6. A hat trick against Wigan (15th), and further goals against Blackburn (2 goals – 19th) as well as a goal against Stoke (14th) meant that his average was also a very poor 15.14. Pavel Pogrebnyak somehow managed to get an even lower average with 17.33. Seen as being a good signing, his goals perhaps covered up that he only did it against poor teams. Sessegnon is the same, as is Adam Johnson – though at least he scored some goals (I’m looking at you Downing).

And so onto the Average Opposition Flat Track Bully award for 2011-12. Based on those players who broke into double figures:

What a difference a year makes. Rafael van der Vaart was last year’s big game player with an average opposition ranking of 7.46 and 8 goals against the Top 6 teams. Fast forward 12 months and he has the second worst average with 13.73, and just two goals against Top 6 opponents – Arsenal and Newcastle. Why? Well it was his second season in England, so his game and positioning was well known by opponents, he also played a few more games out wide, and perhaps most importantly, he lost Peter Crouch as a strike partner – several of his goals last year were from Crouch knock downs. Adebayor has replaced him as the lone striker in Spurs formation, and has undoubtedly had a better season, but it’s affected van der Vaart’s effectiveness. Still, hitting double figures in the league for a second successive season is not to be sniffed at.

And the same applies to our man with the lowest ranked opposition per goal – West Brom’s Peter Odemwingie. Last year, his 15 goals last year were against an average ranked team of 9.67, and also worth a league high 17 points. This year, like van der Vaart, he’s a known player for defences to watch out for. His one goal against Top 6 teams was against Newcastle (5th) in a 3-2 win. His average of 15.00 is predominantly down to the 4 goals he scored against bottom placed Wolves.

Pointless Goals

And as with every big game player, there’s flat track bully, the same can be said of the importance of goals – whilst van Persie’s goals have been worth 24 points to Arsenal, who’s goals have meant sod all, or very little?

Whilst Walcott had a pretty good season in front of goal with 8 from out wide, none of them mattered a great deal come the final scorelines of Arsenal matches. That is perhaps a little unfair on Theo as his goal against Chelsea was to put Arsenal ahead, whilst his brace against Spurs in the 5-2 win gave the Gunners a bit more breathing space, although it was already 3-2 by the time he scored. Berbatov’s inclusion is no real surprise – he tended to score in big wins, aside from the brace against Blackburn in a surprise defeat at Old Trafford.

Another big name is that of Fernando Torres, half of his goals came in 6-1 win over QPR, whilst he also got the consolation at 3-0 down against Man Utd (not gonna mention that miss). Even his goal against Barcelona in the Champions League semi final wasn’t really needed, they were already through on away goals – though it did give them breathing space.

And lastly in the goal scoring section, the men who make the goals.

Assists

David Silva was unsurprisingly the player with the most assists this season, creating a very impressive 15 goals. His split wasn’t too bad either, with three against the Top teams, and most importantly, assists in the crucials games – QPR and Man Utd, two games that decided the destination of the title.

Equally unsurprising were the players in second and third – Valencia and Mata. However, despite being regarded as one of the best right wingers in the league last season, Valencia was something of a Flat Track Bully with his assists. Of the 13, 10 of them were against the Bottom 6 teams, leading to a very high average ranked opponent of 15.85.  Also creating for Man Utd was Nani, with 10 assists. Despite spending far more minutes than he’d care for on the bench, he still managed a decent 10, but like Valencia, he only had one against Top 6 opponents.

Emmanuel Adebayor was the surprise big game creator, with 7 of his 11 assists coming against the best teams in the league. This is inflated by the 4 assists he was awarded against Newcastle in a 5-0 win, but he also created in both games against Arsenal. Elsewhere, despite being somewhat of a flat track bully with his goals, Stephane Sessengnon was happy to create against any team – and his three assists against Top 6 teams were all against Man City, as Sunderland took 4 points from the eventual champions.

That’s all for part 1, part 2 will contain the team stats, including defensive stats.

Cheers,

Liam

The Premier League’s Best Goalscoring Partnerships

The Barclays Premier League celebrates the completion of 20 seasons in just a few weeks time, and in that time, there’s been some great strike partnerships. But who has been the best? Which duo have been most even? Which Partnership delivered for longest? And which nationalities have been been the best?

Shearer and Sutton – the best Partnership in Premier League history?

The Rules:

Firstly, this is Premier League Only. Secondly, each partnership needs to have scored at least 30 league goals be listed and most importantly, each player must have scored at least 10 goals. That means Southampton’s Matt Le Tissier and Neil Maddison do not qualify as the 32 goals were split 25/7. Nice try Neil.

If there are mulitple combinations, the highest one will be used. For example, in 1999, Yorke and Cole (35) and Yorke and Solksjaer (30) both reached the required number.

I’ve decided that the Partnership doesn’t necessarily have to be two strikers. It can also be made up of Forward and Winger, or Forward and Attacking Midfielder – such as Torres and Gerrard.

The Numbers:

• 47 – partnerships that have achieved 30 goals or more in a single league season
• 1,736 – goals have been scored by the 55 players featured in the list
• 2 – Partnerships are still playing this season
• 12 – number of midfielders involved
• 22 – different nationalities
• 8 – pairs managed to score 40+ and only 2 of those partnerships have topped 50 goals.

The List:

Below is the list of Partnerships from 47 to 6, with the Average Opposition Treatment given to the Top 5:

Who’d have thought that van Nistelrooy and Solksjaer (40 goals) were more prolific than Cole and Yorke (35 and 39). Similarly, Sheringham (who’s been left out of the 20 year awards for some unknown reason) and Chris Armstrong at Spurs were more prolific than Berbatov and Keane. The eagle eyed among you will notice Henry and Pires teamed up on no less than three occasions to break the 30 goal partnership mark – 2002-03, 2003-04,  and 2004-05 – with Pires hitting 14 league goals for three impressive consecutive seasons from midfield. Just don’t ask them to team up on penalties.

Aguero and Dzeko in 27th place can still add to their tally, as can Rooney & Hernandez – both partnerships are on 34 goals for this season. Most surprising of the partnerships? I’d say Chris Sutton & Efan Ekoku (37 goals) and and Mark Bright & Gordon Watson (31 goals) – though both pairs did it in a 42 game season.

Some surprising ommisions include Anelka & Bergkamp, who hit 29 league goals in 1998-99, Leeds pair Viduka & Smith (28 goals in 200-01) and Dwight Yorke & Savo Milosevic who also hit 29 goals in 1995-96.

The Top 5:

5. Kevin Phillips and Niall Quinn – Sunderland 1999-2000 – 44 Goals

In one way it one of the most unlikely prolific partnerships (and it was a proper partnership) going. Just a few years earlier, Phillips was struggling in a Watford team plying their trade in Division Two (League One) and Niall Quinn was something of fading star – returning to the Top Division aged 33 after helping Sunderland to promotion. Despite having had a 41 goal partnership in the promotion campaign (23/18), many predicted Sunderland and Phillips in particular to struggle. Rodney Marsh was quoted as saying Phillips would “struggle to score 6 goals”. But then he may not be the best judge given some of his other statements. Instead, they formed one of the best partnerships the league has ever seen – and comfortably the best from a promoted team. Phillips had his greatest ever season with 30 league goals and Quinn managed a decent 14 – his second highest top flight tally in his 19 year career. A great return for a target man. The classic Big Man-Little Man partnership would stay together for another two full seasons, although they never recreated that magical season with 21 in 2000-01 and 17 the following year. Quinn retired after only 8 appearances in 2002-03 whilst Phillips moved on to Southampton in the summer of the same season, scoring just 6 goals – with Sunderland relegated.

Best Moment: Sunderland 4-1 Chelsea. Both scored a brace as they beat much fancied Chelsea to move into 4th place, and avenge a 4-0 opening day defeat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFspQb8u9DE . Though Sunderland fans will tell you it was when both scored to beat Newcastle at St. James’s park.

4. Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez – Manchester United 2007-08 – 45 Goals

Going one better than the Wearside duo were the slightly more glamorous pairing of Ronaldo and Tevez, though as with the goals, the glamour was more from Ronaldo than the Argentinian. Part of a front three with Rooney rather than an out an out partnership (Rooney got 12 goals), their goals fired Man United to a League and Champions League double. This was the season that Ronaldo went from very good to one of the best in the World as he hit an incredible 31 goals in 34 league games. Tevez enjoyed his first season at the club after an eventful stay at West Ham, and hit a decent 14 league goals – doubling his tally with the East Londoners. These days, Ronaldo would be embarrassed to score only 31 league goals at Real Madrid (he scored 40 last season and has 41 this season) whilst Tevez outscored every Premier League player over the 2009-11 period with 43 goals in the Sky Blue of Man City. The pair, along with Rooney, were together for the 2008-09 season as well, but Tevez was left frustrated as Dimitar Berbatov’s signing restricted his playing time – leading to the controversial move across Manchester.

Best Moment: The Champions League Final win over Chelsea. Ronaldo scored in a 1-1 draw to prove his big game player status, and Tevez kept his nerve to score in the penalty shoot out. In the league, they regularly linked up quite nicely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFPVZOylmpY

3. Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton – Blackburn Rovers 1994-95 – 49 Goals (42 game season)

When Chris Sutton was signed from Norwich (where he had a surprisingly good partnership with Efan Ekoku), eyebrows were raised in the football world. £5 million now would buy you a seventh of Andy Carroll, but at the time it was a big deal as it smashed the English Transfer Record (Kenny has form in this area). In the 1993-94 season, Blackburn finished 2nd to Manchester United with a decent 84 points but a stingy 63 goals. Shearer scored 31 of them, whilst the next highest scorer was Kevin Gallacher with 7. Support was needed, and Chris Sutton with 25 goals the previous year, was the outstanding candidate. In a slightly unusual big man-big man partnership, the pair linked up superbly. Fuelled by the crosses of Jason Wilcox and Stuart Ripley, the pair smashed in 49 goals between them. Once again, Shearer was the main man, but Sutton chipped in with decent 15 goals to push over the line – beating Man Utd to the title by one point. Unfortunately for Blackburn fans, the two of them never really clicked again. Sutton suffered an injury plagued season as they attempted to defend their title, playing only 13 games with no goals. It didn’t affect Shearer too much as he still scored 31 league goals, but the team suffered with Sutton’s absence. That summer, Shearer of course made the £15 million move to Newcastle where he’d strike up a good partnership with Les Ferdinand (see number 7), whilst Sutton in turn worked will with Gallacher (number 32), but neither managed to find a better partnership.

Best Moment: Lifting the Premier League Trophy on the final day of the season. They linked up on numerous occasions throughout the season, with this 3-1 win over Villa a typical example (apologies for the advert first) http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xejzac_shearer-x2-sutton-vs-aston-villa-se_sport. For Chris Sutton, it was the hug that Alan Shearer gave him in the photo above. He loved that.

2. Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard – Chelsea 2009-10 – 51 Goals

Not your typical partnership with a central midfielder and centre forward, but between them, Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard scored a whopping 51 goals – becoming only the second duo to break the 50 goal mark (see below), and the first to do so in a 38 game season. And in a way, they were Chelsea’s main attackers. In a 4-5-1 formation (or 4-3-3 depending on your viewpoint), Drogba led the line on his own, with Lampard breaking from deep to get into the box at every opportunity. Drogba’s late charge saw him overcome Rooney in the race for the Golden boot, whilst Lampard also had his best scoring season – and is the highest scoring second player in the partnerships list. The pair also combined to break the 30 goal mark in the 2006-07 (Drogba 20, Lampard 11), whilst Lampard is also on the list with Nicolas Anelka in 2008-09.

Best Moment:Once again it was lifting the Premier League trophy after three seasons of Man Utd dominance, Chelsea finally laid to rest the ghost of Jose Mourinho under the stewardship of Carlo Ancelotti. Individually, Drogba scored the winning goal at Old Trafford to swing the title race in Chelsea’s favour, whilst Lampard hit four goals in the 7-1 destruction of 6th placed Aston Villa. And they were both involved heavily in the title celebrations, with an 8-0 win over Wigan on the final day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbF50O7Yl1I

And that takes us to first place in the list of prolific Premier League Partnerships. Did you guess who it was?

1. Andy (Andrew) Cole and Peter Beardsley – Newcastle 1993-94 – 55 Goals (42 game season)

 And so it’s a partnership from just the second season of the Premier League that takes top spot in the list. It was by no means a guarantee either. Newcastle had been promoted the previous season, and Andy Cole had onnly played 12 games for the club, and had never played in the Premier League. Beardsley had been re-signed to his hometown team aged 32 after spells with Liverpool and Everton, aged 32, he was brought in to add a bit of experience. No one could have expected what happened next. 55 goals from a combined 75 games saw the Toon Army finish a lofty 3rd in the league as Kevin Keegan’s men gained the title of ‘The Entertainers’. Cole and and Beardsley were central to this, and their partnership reminded many of Beardsley and Lineker for England – the classic tricky creative number 10, feeding the classic speedy number 9. Although it was a 42 game season, they still finish first when re-calculating for a 38 game league. They were by far and away the best partnership the Premier League has seen – which is especially surprising given that they’d never played together before. Sadly for Newcastle fans, it would be the only full season that they played together, as Cole made the controversial £5 million move to Manchester United midway through the 1994-95 season. He’d go on to great things at Man Utd, but even though his partnership with Dwight Yorke is considered one of the best, it was nowhere near as good as his pair up with Beardsley.

Best Moment:In the space of 3 games at the end of October into November, the pair scored a combined 10 goals including Cole’s hat trick at Anfield and Beardsley’s hat trick against a Wimbledon team which would finish 6th. Both would also score against Oldham. Not many videos around of the two of them apart from the highlights of a 2-1 win away at Norwich in which they both scored: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jDnDb5mMPQ

And so that’s the list completed. What? You want more? Well okay, he’s a few more findings:

Most Compatible Partners:

Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney is the man to go to if you want a successful partnership. He’s been in no fewer than seven 30 goal partnerships over the years for United (only five above as Tevez and Hernandez edged him out of other partnerships). Twice with Cristiano Ronaldo, once with Dimitar Berbatov and Ruud van Nistelrooy, and this season with Javier Hernandez. On four of those occasions, Man Utd have gone on to win the league title. Interestingly, Rooney has only been the principal scorer in two of these partnerships – this season and 2009-10. Aged only 26, he should go on to dominate the Premier League Partnerships in the coming years with both Danny Welbeck and Javier Hernandez.

Just behind Rooney are three more Englishman – step forward Les Ferdinand. Sir Les was part of a 30 goal partnership on three occasions, and each time was with a different partner. First up was Bradley Allen at QPR in 1992-93 (20/10). He followed that up with a 34 goal partnership with a young Kevin Gallen two years later (24/10) before making the big money move to Newcastle that summer. Although he hit 25 league goals in his first season, Beardsley only hit 8, meaning they don’t qualify. Instead it was the partnership with another Geordie, Alan Shearer, that saw a 41 goal partnership in 1996/97 (25/16 – Shearer). Ferdinand left the Toon Army after just two seasons, and could never find another suitable partner.

And matching Ferdinand on three partners is yet another Englishman – Robbie Fowler. Despite leaving Liverpool for the first time aged just 26, he was in four 30 goal partnerships at Anfield, with Ian Rush (37 goals) in 1994/95, Stan Collymore (42 goals and 30 goals 1995-97) and Michael Owen (32 goals) in 1998-99.

Chris Sutton also managed the achievement, albeit hard to believe for any Chelsea fans that saw him play. Firstly in 1993/94 with Efan Ekoku at Norwich City (37 goals), followed by the famous S.A.S. partnership with Shearer the following year (as mentioned above), and lastly with Scotland’s Kevin Gallacher in 1997/98 (34 goals).

Aside from the English, Dimitar Berbatov has also managed to be part of three 30 goal partnerships. Firstly at Spurs with Irishman Robbie Keane in 2007/08 in a perfectly balanced 15+15 split. That was his last season at White Hart Lane before moving on to Old Trafford. It was at Manchester United where he had his best partnership – 38 goals with Wayne Rooney (2009-10), whilst Berba and Henrnandez reached 33 last season. That’s three partnerhips, three different partners and three different nationalities. Which leads nicely onto:

Nationalities:

Unsurprisingly it’s the England and England Partnership that occurs most often in the 20 years of Premier League football, when looking at 30 goal partnerships. Although that’s certainly a changing trend in recent seasons. The last time an all English partnership scored 30 league goals was over 10 years ago – when Michael Owen and Emile Heskey (stop laughing), scored 30 goals exactly (16/14) for Liverpool in the 2000-01 season.

Aside from the All England partnerships, it’s the French that are the next best. The three all French partnerships were all Henry and Pires for the three seasons from 2002-2005. Eric Cantona (with Giggs), Henry (with Ljungberg), and Anelka (with Lampard). After the French, it’s the Dutch – van Nistelrooy, Hasselbaink, Bergkamp and Bryan Roy.

The Midfielders:

Great in partnerships, just not together

Robert Pires and Frank Lampard appear on three occasions each, with Steven Gerrard (twice with Torres) and Freddie Ljungberg also making it. Lampard was by far and away the most prolific with 22 goals in 2009-10, with Gerrard hitting 16, Pires hitting 14 (3 times) and Ljungberg scoring 12 as part of a 36 goal partnership with Thierry Henry in 2001-02. I’m counting Cristiano Ronaldo as a Forward in this list. Poyet, Giggs and Scholes make up the rest.

And that’s about that on 20 years of the Premier League Partnerships. The Worst Duo? Well I saw 32 year old Mike Newell team up with a 32 year old Iain Dowie who was in the middle of a year long goal drought. The seven games together saw zero goals – although it was useful in spurring on Harry Redknapp to sign John Hartson and Paul Kitson – a partnership that kept West Ham up in the 1996-97 season with 13 goals combined from the last 11 games of the season. Unfortunately for Hammers fans, Kitson’s West Ham career was blighted by injuries, meaning the partnership never really got a chance to blossom.

Cheers,

Liam

The Myth of Maradona?

It’s long been the biggest debate in Football – who has been the greatest footballer of all time. The debate has generally included Pele, Cruyff, Best, Ronaldo, Zidane, and lately, Messi – but it’s usually Argentina’s Diego Maradona that comes out on top for the oft used line “he won things with poor teams”. Well I’m gonna look into the accuracy of that statement in an attempt to prove it’s relevance to the World’s greatest debate. The teams in question are Argentina’s World Cup winners of 1986, and Napoli’s Serie A winners of 1987 and 1990. I’ll put forward the data, will add my views and will let you decide:

It’s never really been in doubt. Growing up, my Dad told me the following ‘facts’ about football – Maradona was the best player of all time, George Best was the best player from UK & Ireland, and Alan Devonshire was the best player he saw for West Ham (though there was an honourable mention for Sir Trevor Brooking). And that was that. I had no reason to doubt any of that in the last 20+ years of watching football and from what I remember of Maradona in Italia 90 (especially this assist).

But

In my quest/obsession to discover the best big game players of all time, I noticed a few interesting things. I’ve been trawling through all of the data from World Cups, European Championships, Copa Americas, Champions League, Copa Libertadores, and UEFA/Europa League/Cup Winners Cup games and discovered that a) the Top 20 Big Game Players article is going to take me absolutely ages, and b) Maradona isn’t even in the top 25 Big Game players since 1980 (Semi Finals and Finals).

Argentina 1986:

The best place to start is his greatest achievement in football, and the tournament for which he will be most remembered. The idea that he singlehandedly took his teams to glory was created on the back of the World Cup win in 1986 with an “ordinary team”.

Firstly, the defence:

Titles are won built on solid defences, and regardless of whether you have the best player of all time in your team or not, you won’t win anything without a solid defence. As seen from the table above, letting in less than a goal a game will go a long way to winning the World Cup, and the Argentina 1986 team conceded just five goals in their seven games, including three clean sheets. The previous winners Italy conceded six, and West Germany also conceded five on the way to lifting the trophy in 1990.

Secondly, the squad. We’ve already seen the defence were certainly good enough to win a World Cup, and there were also some other noticeable players alongside Maradona. Whilst he top scored with five goals, Jorge Valdano of Real Madrid (no less) also weighed in with four, including one in the Final. Elsewhere there was also quality from Oscar Ruggeri, Jorge Burruchaga and Sergio Batista. This was by no means a squad without talent.

And what of Maradona’s impact? Well it is fair to say that he did have an amazing tournament. He scored one goal against Italy in the group stages, but it was the Quarter Final meeting with England that really won him the plaudits. He scored a brace against a country that Argentina had recently been at war with, including the best goal ever scored in World Cup football. Then in the Semi Finals against Belgium, he scored another brace in a 2-0 win to get his country to the Final. He also grabbed five assists meaning that he either scored or created 10 of Argentina’s 14 goals.

Is there any other player to so dominate a major tournament? Well yes, just two years earlier in fact. Michel Platini lifted the European Championship Trophy for France. Like Maradona, he was an attacking midfielder, but his impact was arguably bigger than Maradona’s in 1986. He scored 9 goals in 5 games for the French including the winner in the Semi Final and the opener in the Final. In fact his career record of 312 goals in 580 games is almost identical when compared to Maradona’s 311 in 589. Platini’s international record was 41 in 72 games compared to Diego’s 34 in 91. Yet France’s Euro 84 winners are best remembered for the midfield four or magic square of Platini, Alain Giresse, Luis Fernández and Jean Tigana. Not one player, despite his massive input.

There’s little doubt that Maradona was the player of the tournament, but did that mean that the rest of the team were poor?

Napoli 1987:

El Diego was celebrating again a year later as he was instrumental in winning Napoli’s first league title. Once again he had a big input in the team’s win. Though was he the one man team he’s made out to be?

Napoli were the best team in Serie A in 1986-87, they won the most games, lost the fewest, and had the best goal difference. They won the league by 3 points, when a win was only worth 2 points. First up – their league record in isolation:

Once again, we’ll start with the defence. As with Argentina’s 1986 World Champions, Napoli’s 1987 Serie A winners were built on one of the strongest defences in the league. Conceding just 21 goals in 30 games (0.7 conceded per game), meant that they had a great base to build on. Of the 30 games, they kept clean sheets in 16 of them. Only Inter Milan (3rd) conceded less goals that season, with 17. So it’s fair to say that the Title Win was built from the back.

Next up, Maradona’s team mates. The team that won the title that year, ended up with 167 Italian Caps between them – hardly average players. The defence contained a young Ciro Ferrara who went on to win a second title with Napoli, and then to won six more with Juventus, along with the 1996 Champions League. Also in the squad were Italian Internationals Salvatore Bagni, Fernando De Napoli, Bruno Giordano (more of him later) and Andrea Carnevale. Not too shabby.

So it’s been established that the team had a fantastic defence and had other quality in Italian internationals. What did Maradona bring? Well, he was the Top Scorer that season and brought 10 goals in 29 appearances – a one in three strike rate. Of the 10 goals, 2 of them were penlties and two of his goals were scored in a 4-0 win over Empoli. So his goals only affected 9 of Napoli’s 30 league games.

As Serie A was made up of just 16 teams that season, I’ve split the opposition range in Top 4, Middle 8 and Bottom 4, and looking at the above, there’s a glaring omission. As someone who is supposed to have singlehandedly won the league for Napoli, he didn’t score in any of the games against their immediate rivals for the titles – Juventus in 2nd, Inter in 3rd and Verona in 4th. His average ranked opponent per goal was just 10.5 out of a 16 team league. They took just one point from Inter and Verona (0-0’s thanks to the defence), and did the double over Juventus – 3-1 away and 2-1 at home. Despite being top scorer, Maradona was not amoungst the 5 goals. Big game player? Maybe not in that season.

Having looked at the opposition he scored against, and that just 8 were from open play/free kicks, how important were his goals? Well as you can see from the above table, his goals were worth 10 points to Napoli, although this doesn’t take into account the part played by the defence in keeping clean sheets. To put the 10 points into perspective, Robin van Persie’s goals this season have been worth 22 points after 29 games. Perhaps not quite he one man team that’s made out.

And lastly, what of the standard of the league that season? Well Napoli’s 45 points with a +20 goal difference would not have been enough for the title in either the season before or the season after.

Without taking away from the achievement, they won less points, less games and scored fewer goals of the previous and following Champions. They were still undoubtedly the strongest team in the 1986-87 season, but their final performance would not have won them the league in most seasons.

So in reflection of the 1986-87 season, it’s fair to say that whilst his contribution was certainly impressive, and he was certainly their best player, he didn’t by any means carry the team to the title. First and foremost, the defence were the foundations of the win, with 16 clean sheets. His team mates were by no means ordinary, and Maradona’s actual performance in the most important games were not the difference. Add to that the lower points tally that won the league and I think it’s fair to say that it was definitely not a one man show.

Napoli 1990:

After the glory of their first title in 1987, Napoli would only have to wait a further three seasons to win their second (and at the time of writing, last) Championship title. Once again, Maradona played a massive part in the 1990 triumph, in what was now a 34 game season (18 team league).

Once again, the title was built on a strong defence. In the 34 league games, they conceded just 31 goals, at a rate of 0.9 goals per game and 14 clean sheets. This was once again the second best defence in Serie A, second only to Milan. It’s once again fair to say that without this defensive display, Napoli wouldn’t have been Champions.

Moving on to his team mates, Napoli had strengthened since the 1987 title. Maradona could now list Brazilian International Careca amongst his team. The striker would score 73 goals for Napoli in just 164 games, as well as 29 in 60 appearances for Brazil. Playing alongside Maradona and Giordano, Careca made the final piece of the famous “Ma-Gi-Ca” attacking trio. Another new name from the 1987 triumph was a young Gianfranco Zola. The future Chelsea legend won the title in his first season with the Naples club. Elsewhere, the club had also strengthened in midfield, with another Brazilian international – Alemao, adding some steel in the middle of the park. In all, the 1990 Napoli squad contained players that would finish with over 280 caps for Brazil and Italy. Maradona was the brightest star, but by no means the only one.

And so after seeing another strong performance from the defence, and an improved squad, what was Maradona’s performance like? After starting the season at 29 – near the peak of most players careers, he enjoyed his best league season for the club, with 16 goals in 28 appearances:

 

That’s a bit more like it. He managed 5 goals against Top 5 teams including a goal against 2nd placed Milan, and a brace against Juventus. His average opposition was a decent 9.18 when the average excluding first placed Napoli is 10. When the big games came about, he stepped up. You can however point to 7 penalties in the 16 goals. His 16 goals, were worth 9 points to Napoli’s points total of 51.

And once again we can also point to the standard of the contenders that season:

For each of the surrounding seasons, Napoli’s haul of 51 points with a goal difference of 26 would agave meant 2nd place. So when looking at Maradona’s contribution, other factors such as the performance of rivals must be taken into account. 

So as with his triumphs in 1986 and 1987, Maradona was undoubtedly instrumental. But they were far from ordinary teams that relied solely on their talisman to inspire. Once again, the defence let in less than a goal a game, the squad had lots of quality in, and the level of opposition was lower than in surrounding seasons. At least in this season, you can point to Maradona’s performance in the big games to show his importance.

Other:

World Cup 1990 – He took Argentina to final but scored no goals

Copa Italia 1987 – 10 games, 7 goals as Napoli lifted the trophy

UEFA Cup 1989 – 3 goals in 12 appearances as they won the trophy

In Conclusion:

There’s no doubt that Maradona is one of if not the greatest footballer there has ever been, no one can argue against that with any real conviction. However, the notion that he’s the greatest because he won trophies with weak teams is not something that can be used in his favour. As seen above, although a key part in each of the trophies he won, he couldn’t have done it without strong defences behind him. He didn’t singlehandedly win the tournaments on his own, when his list of team mates include Valdano, Ferrara, Zola, Careca et al. He didn’t score in either of the World Cup finals he appeared in, and only one of the Semi Finals. When Napoli won the Copa Italia in 1987 over a two legged final, Maradona was not on the scoresheet despite a 4-0 aggregate win. He did score in the UEFA Cup Final win against Stuttgart, but that was from the penalty spot. Comparing him with the other greatest attacking midfielders and in the big games, he comes out a distant second to Zidane. Zizou had 3 World Cup Final goals, a World Cup Semi Final goal, a Champions League Final goal, and 4 in the Champions League Semi finals for good measure. You can also add in a semi final goal in Euro 2000. Maradona on his part has 4 goals in 12 Copa America appearances, which is a long way off Platini’s record in the European equivalent.

So when people point to Messi and say that he can never be considered the greatest because he didn’t win any tournaments with average sides, then who did? If Messi’s Argentina team had the defence that Maradona had behind him, then there’s a good chance they would have gone a lot further in the last two World Cups. The fact that Messi has played his whole career at Barcelona is not a reason to discount his claim to being the greatest.

So there you have it, I’m not disputing his place with the greats, but I would think twice before using the old one man team argument.

Any Maradona fans looking for more, then this is a great site for rare footage of Diego in his prime: http://wn.com/Maradona_87

Cheers,

Liam

The Chelsea Striker Graveyard?

Between 1999 and 2006 Andrei Shevchenko was one of Europe’s deadliest strikers, having scored 127 Serie A goals in 208 games – a goal every 1.6 games. In all competitions, he scored 174 goals in 296 games for AC Milan in this time period. He then made the big money move to big spending Chelsea. He’s widely regarded as an expensive flop, but he’s not alone. Fernando Torres, Mateja Kezman, Adrian Mutu, Hernan Crespo and Claudio Pizarro all joined Chelsea as prolific strikers, and all left with their reputation damaged from their stay in West London. Were they all as bad as everybody thinks? And who’s been the biggest failure?

From the start of the Roman Abramovich era in the summer of 2006, there’s been a steady flow of big name strikers at the club. In that time though, there’s only been arguably two real successes – Didier Drogba, and to a lesser extent, Nicolas Anelka.

So to start of with, the goal scoring stats of the Chelsea strikers signed since summer 2003. To give the signings some context, first up is their goalscoring for their previous clubs:

It’s easy to see why they were all targeted by the wealthy West London club. All have strong goal scoring records in good leagues. You can argue that Kezman’s goals in the Dutch league would come about a little easier, but a goal every 1.36 games is still a great return. Mutu, Crespo and Shevchenko all thrived in a defensive Serie A, Pizarro in the league most similar to the Premier league – the Bundesliga, Drogba enjoyed an excellent season in France (whilst excelling in the UEFA Cup), and of course Anelka and Torres were well known from successful spells in the Premier League. In terms of reputation, Shevchenko would have just about edged ahead of Torres, with his exploits in the Champions League and Serie A. Drogba on the other hand was largely purchased based on just one excellent season with Marseille – where he thrived against English Opposition in the club’s run to the UEFA Cup final.

Based on their prior clubs, and the strong leagues that they excelled in, you’d expect each player to continue to thrive. But unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for all:

In terms of goals, Didier Drogba has been far and away the biggest success in terms of number, and the number of games per goal. With an impressive 152 goals, and one every 2.16 games, he’s deservedly considered a club legend at Stamford Bridge. He’s been integral to the success Chelsea have enjoyed since 2004. Three league titles, three FA Cups, and two League Cups in 8 seasons tells it’s own story. Second in the list in both goals scored and games per goal is Nicolas Anelka. Known as a troublesome journeyman, Anelka made more appearances for Chelsea than any other team, with 70 goals scored in his 204 appearances, resulting in a goal every 2.91 games.

But this article isn’t about Drogba and Anelka. It’s about the failures.

In terms of longevity, none of the other players were even close to 100 appearances for the club. Crespo and Shevchenko did at least break the 70 mark though, and it’s the two Serie A imports that appear 3rd and 4th on the games per goal list. Whilst we consider Anelka a success for Chelsea, Hernan Crespo’s scoring rate was near identical to his, at 2.92 games per goal. Whilst this doesn’t compare too well to a goal every 1.64 games for Parma, it’s still not the failure that some may have thought. And surprisingly, Shevchenko’s strike rate wasn’t anywhere near as bad as people make out. Torres’ goalscoring rate in his first year at Chelsea has been compared to Shevchenko’s. Both were very expensive strikers, both were prolific and both were considered amongst the best in the world. But that’s where the similarities end. Shevchenko scored 22 goals in his 77 Chelsea games at a rate of 1 goal every 3.5 games. Torres has 1 goal for every 10 games.The only player with a worse strike rate was Claudio Pizarro – who was signed as a back up striker. He managed a very poor 2 goals in 28 games.

Making up the list, Mutu is 5th with a goal every 3.8 games, and Kezman is 6th with 5.86. The biggest conclusion is that none of the players improved their strike rates from their prior teams.

Next up – the cost per goal:

Well if nothing else, Torres has been consistant. One goal per ten games, is matched on the cost per goal measure as well – one goal per £10million. Ouch. Shevchenko, the player compared to Torres, has a cost of £1.4m per goal. It’s still a very large number, but it’s nowhere near the £10m that Torres has hanging over his name. Adrian Mutu has the second highest cost per goal with £1.58m – although it has to be remembered that Chelsea sued the player for breach of Contract, so the actual cost wasn’t as high. When looking at Torres’ cost per goal in his time at Chelsea, it’s unsurprising that he’s getting a lot of attention, when you have players like Grant Holt of Norwich and Danny Graham of Swansea, both outscoring him comfortably.

At the other end of the scale, unsurprisingly again, it’s Drogba and Anelka offering the best value for money in terms of goals. Despite chunky transfer fees, Drogba’s 152 Chelsea goals have been at a cost of £160k for each one, whilst Anelka offered a slightly worse rate of £210k per goal. Looked at in isolation, it’s still an expensive number, but a mere pittance compared to the millions of pounds for the Torres, Mutu’s and Shevchenko’s goals. Kezman and Crespo were 4th and 5th, whilst Pizarro had no cost per goal (all two of them) as he was signed on a free.

So we’ve seen the bare numbers, but what’s the reason for all of the strikers strike rate falling?

Formation/Tactics:

Since Mourinho took over at the start of the 2004/05 season, Chelsea have primarily played a 4-3-3 formation. All of the players were signed as Central Strikers. Straight away that means with that many strikers, and only one central role, the players will either have less playing time, or have to play in an unfamiliar supporting wide role (as performed successfully by Anelka). The central striking role is different in what is needed for the team. Most of the above players shone at their previous clubs in a 4-4-2 formation. Torres and Shevchenko in particular, were at their best with another forward alongside, whether it was Gerrard playing in a number 10 role, or Inzaghi poaching around the box.

Playing at the top of a 4-3-3 formation demands a different skill set. First and foremost, you need to be able to hold the ball up. As the central focal point, it’s the strikers job to bring other players into the game, and provide an outlet for the defence and midfield. It also helps to be an aerial threat. In a 4-4-2, with another central forward alongside them, players can offer something else. Torres in particular, was most effective for Liverpool when running onto through balls, and playing off the defenders shoulder. Similarly, Shevchenko was also good at this – although not as good as his former strike partner Inzaghi (“He was born offside” – Fergie). Both scored a large number of their goals through central attacking positions, whilst the 4-3-3 relies on the wide men for the creativity.

The Drogba Effect:

When playing a settled 4-3-3 formation, as mentioned above, the central striker needs to be an outlet, an aerial threat, and good at holding the ball up. Drogba has been one of the best players in the world in this formation for the past 5 years. And if you have the best in the World, how do the other players get in to prove their worth?

Mutu and Crespo had the biggest opportunity, as both signed before the big Ivorian. However, for mainly off the field problems (one was a cokehead, one was an Argentinian who was homesick for Italy), neither could really cement their place as the main striker before Drogba’s signing. Aside from Mutu and Crespo, the rest have been fighting a losing battle. Unable to replace Drogba as the central striker, players have been pushed out wide, or simply not had enough games. The number of appearances in the lists above are slightly boosted by substitute appearances.

Nicolas Anelka has been the second most succesful striker of the Abramovich signings, but that was largely down to two reasons. Firstly, in the 2008/09 season, Drogba missed most of the season, and as a result Anelka had more games as the central striker. This resulted in 25 goals, and a Premier League golden boot that season. Secondly, he’s been one of the few players who’s been able to make the transition to the wide positions.

How settled?

When looking into the variances, I looked at the ages of the players at the time of signing. To cut a long story short, they were all in their 20s, meaning that none of them had passed their peak. Aside from that, I thought perhaps the price tag might provide a trend. Whilst Torres is the obvious one to look at, Drogba’s fee of £24m in 2004 was a very significant outlay at the time. At the other end of the scale, Claudio Pizarro cost nothing in transfer fees, but only scored 2 goals. Of course, different players are going to react differently mentally to such pressure, but there’s no direct correlation.

But there was one pattern that did emerge. The amount of time the players had spent at their previous clubs. Shevchenko made 296 appearances for Milan, Pizarro had played 251 times for Bayern Munich, Kezman 176 for PSV and finally, Torres played 142 times for the Anfield club. If you compare the number of games for their prior club compared to their goals per game ration, then you can start to see the link. At the other end of the scale, Drogba had played for Marseille for just one season, and Guingamp for two seasons before that. Crespo, who had the 3rd best games/goals ratio, had also spent just the one season at his prior club. There could be a few reasons for the trend – players could have reacted badly to leaving their comfort zones, they may have built up a good relationship with their team mates, and if they are settled in one place, it’s likely that they’re happy off the pitch as well.

Complete Failures?

So were they complete failures? Yes and No. Torres has a lot to do to be considered anything but a flop. Fifty games into a new club is enough to form a judgement, and five goals for £50m just isn’t good enough. Yes, he’s had to develop his all round game, and he’s also provided many assists, but for that price (and it’s not his fault), he needs to be delivering more goals. Shevchenko, whilst considered as a flop, does at least have a couple of domestic cup medals to his name. He’s perhaps considered a failure due to the large number of goals he scored in the Champions League, and Serie A. He also had the problem that he was signed by the owner rather than the manager. As a result, it was always going to be a struggle for him.

Crespo and Kezman at least have League Title winners medals as well, whilst Pizarro and Mutu ended their Chelsea careers empty handed.

After Chelsea:

A bit of a mixed bag for the players after they left the club. Initially, Mutu struggled to even match his Chelsea strike rate with Juventus, but then went on to enjoy a very productive spell with Fiorentina, scoring 70 goals in 143 games. Hernan Crespo joined AC Milan in betwen his two seasons at Chelsea, and enjoyed a decent return of 18 in 40 games, including 2 goals in the big game environment of the Champions League Final in 2005.

Claudio Pizarro is now the all time top scoring foreign player in the Bundesliga, and returned to former club Werder Bremen. In his current spell with the team, he’s scored a very impressive 87 goals in 136 games. The real sufferer was Andriy Shevchenko. After returning back to his beloved AC Milan, short of confidence, 2 years older, and no longer first choice, he scored just 2 goals in 26 games, to slightly ruin the legacy he had left behind. He then went back to his first club Dynamo Kiev, where he’s managed 20 goals in 48 games. Mateja Kezman? Retired at 32.

Nicolas Anelka has yet to make his first appearance for his new club in the Chinese league.

In Conclusion:

Well it’s clear as day then! There’s not a definitive answer as to why such prolific strikers have struggled at Chelsea, but a mixture of several. There appears to be a direct link to how settled a player was before signing, there’s the formation and tactics favoured by Chelsea that just don’t suit certain players games, and there’s the domination of Didier Drogba at the club – resulting in less chances and being played out of position. Mentality, also comes into it with the price tag, and there’s the length of time the so called flops have stayed for. Perhaps the previous views on Crespo and Shevchenko shouldn’t be as harsh as first thought, and certainly Mutu did show some glimpses of a decent future. Kezman and Pizarro were poor though.

With Fernando Torres the latest to struggle, he should perhaps be judged after 2-3 seasons. Those with short memories will forget that Drogba was far from the star performer in his first two seasons, with things clicking for him in season 3. Torres also has the knowledge that Drogba’s star is fading, and at 34, he can’t have too long left at the top. On top of this, there’s about to be a new manager at Chelsea who may well suit Torres’ style. Whilst not a popular choice with the Chelsea fans, Rafa Benitez’s name has been bandied about. What is for sure, is that he is a very good player, and surely time will see him prove that, if not, someone may well end up with a very good bargain.

Average Stats to return as normal on Tuesday.

Thanks,

Liam

Player Comparison: Romario vs Ronaldo vs Rivaldo vs Ronaldinho vs Messi

From the early 90’s to the current team, Barcelona have relied heavily on the magic of their South American superstars. One club, two nationalities and five of the best players of all time. All won the World Player of the Year Award in their time with the Catalan club. But who performed most in the big games? And who was most important to the team? The fourth feature in the Player Comparison series compares those brilliant Barcelona boys – Romario, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Messi.

The Contenders:

First up is Romario, the Brazilian marksman was a ruthless finisher, and one of only two players to have scored 1,000 career goals – depending on what you class as official (more on that one here). He played in 6 different countries for 10 different teams, including footballing giants Adelaide United, Miami FC and Al-Sadd. For Brazil, he scored an incredible 55 goals in 70 games, winning the World Cup and the Copa America (twice). Described by Johan Cruyff as a “genius of the goal area”, he won La Liga and the Spanish Super Copa during his time his short stay at Barcelona.

Ronaldo came next. And it was an even shorter stay. For the single season that he represented Barcelona, there were absolutely no doubts who the best player in the World was. Although he didn’t win the League title with the Spanish Club, he did win the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Cup Winners Cup, and despite later going on to play for bitter rivals Madrid, he is still considered one of the Barca greats. Like his predecessor, he also won the Two Copa Americas and a World Cup with Brazil – and is the tournaments all time top scorer with 15 goals. In total he scored 62 goals in 98 appearances for Brazil. He suffered three career threatening injuries, with many suggesting that without them, he could have been the best of all time. Despite this, he still managed to win the World Player of Year award on three occasions.

After Ronaldo’s sale to Inter Milan, Rivaldo was identified as the player to fill the “Brilliant Brazilian” hole that had been left behind. More of a playmaker than the two before him, he was still a prolific scorer, particularly in his 5 years with Barcelona. Deadly from set pieces, he also had the eye for the spectacular – none more so than his hat trick to beat Valencia on the final day of the season to pip them to the last Champions League spot in 2001. The third goal was an over head kick from outside of the area in the last minute (as seen here), and possibly better than Pele’s in escape to Victory. He had a left foot like a magic wand/traction engine, and like Ronaldo, he enjoyed his greatest moment in the 2002 World Cup, as part of the 3 R’s attack. As appears to be the pre requisite, he also won the Copa America, and scored 34 goals in 74 appearances. He’s had even more clubs than Romario, and at 39, is still playing.

Fourth in the list, was cheeky schemer Ronaldinho. As with Rivaldo, he was also more of a playmaker, one blessed with incredible dribbling skills. He is one of the few Barcelona players to have received a standing ovation from fans of Real Madrid in the Bernebeu. Although mainly deployed from wide positions, he has close to 300 career goals (stop laughing Romario) including the 33 for his country (from 93 caps). At 31, he is still strutting his stuff in the Brazilian league with Flamengo. He’s regarded by some as a wasted talent, but during his time with Barcelona he won two World Player of the Year awards. Not bad for an International Playboy (I met him once in Las Vegas – the reputation is justified). Ronaldinho’s partying and the emergence of another skillful playmaker resulted in a somewhat premature exit from the Nou Camp, after he signed for AC Milan (like Rivaldo and Ronaldo before him). As with the players above, he also has World Cup and Copa America medals.

And so on to the last and current Barca player in our list – Lionel Messi. He has the vision of Rivaldo, the dribbling of Ronaldinho, and the finishing and pace of Romario and Ronaldo. He, like Ronaldo has 3 World Player of the Year titles. Where he differs from his Brazilian predecessors (apart from his nationality) is that he’s been a one club man. He had to overcome similar physical challenges as Rivaldo before making it as a top class player. The undoubted best player in the World at the moment, he just has to do it on the International stage to truly cement his place as one of the best, if not the very best of all time. He currently has 222 goals in 309 games for his club (as at the time of writing), and a rather more modest 19 in 66 for Argentina.

“No hard feelings, I just want your Number 10”

Rules:

As per usual, it’s primarily a comparison of their Leauge goals rather than all goals. Why? Because it’s similar opposition (give or take for relegation) – and these opponents are ranked, meaning that we can calculate an average. As they played for different amounts of time for Barcelona, it’ll be a look at their most prolific season in the league. This is calculated on final league positions, rather than at the time of playing.

Of course these players aren’t just about goals, but I don’t have the assists available for Ronaldo and Romario, so will leave them out for this comparison.

Background:

Romario, then 27, signed in the summer of 1993 after 129 goals in just 5 seasons with PSV Eindhoven. Under the stewardship of Johan Cruyff, he had just one full season with the Spanish Giants, so we’ll be looking at the 1993-94 season.

Like Romario before him, Ronaldo made his European club bow with PSV, though only stayed for 2 seasons – his 54 goals in 57 games were enough to persuade Barca to part with $17m for a teenager. Under Bobby Robson, Ronaldo played just the one season with Barcelona – 1996-97.

Rivaldo joined aged 25, from La Liga rivals Deportivo La Coruna for a fee of $26m. Though he played for Barca for 5 seasons, it’s his most prolific that we’ll look at – 24 league goals in 1998-99. Free from the shackles placed upon him by Louis van Gaal in previous years, he thrived under Ferrer.

Ronaldinho’s most prolific season was actually after his two World Player of the Year awards. 2006-07 saw him bang in a decent 21 in the league in Frank Rijkaard’s penultimate season with the club.

And lastly, Messi’s best haul in La Liga was as a 22 year old. He looks set to have his best season in goal scoring terms this season, but for the purpose of this piece, we’ll use his prolific season under Pep Guardiola (Romario and Ronaldo’s team mate) in 2009-10.

This was initially going to be about the 4 Brazilian’s, but you can’t leave Messi out of this. He fits the South American World Player of the Year criteria, and plays up top, so we’ll leave him in. Even though his name doesn’t begin with R and end with O.

Statistics:

Apologies for the long build up, but we can now move onto the stats. I’ve decided to look at it based on three criteria – goal scoring out right, big game players, and importance to the team.

Goalscoring:

First up is the the goal scoring records of each player – based on goals per game and goals per minute:

Firstly, Ronaldinho’s 21 goals in 32 games would be an incredible season in most players careers, and a rate of 0.66 goals per game is an awesome strike rate. When you add to that the fact that he played wide of a front three, then it’s even more impressive. However, this comparison is against some of the greatest and most prolific forwards of all time. Whilst Ronaldinho is perhaps only second to Messi in the dribbling stakes, he’s last in the goals table. Similarly, Rivaldo was more than just a goal scorer, so 24 league goals is a great season. To put it into perspective, it would have won the golden boot 4 of the seasons from 1997-2004.

And so onto the super strikers. In all honesty, there’s not much in it. Ronaldo and Messi lead the way in terms of goals scored with 34 (Messi in two games less). Romario wasn’t too far behind with 30 league goals from just 33 games. They all have close to a goal a game strike rate with 0.91, 0.92 and 0.97 goals per game for Romario, Ronaldo and Messi respectively. To add some perspective, in the last 20 years only 3 other players have broken the 30 goal mark in a season – Cristiano Ronaldo last season, Diego Forlan the year before that, and Pizzi for Tenerife back in 1996. Pizzi did so in a 42 game season (he played 41 games), and whilst Ronaldo also did so in a 42 game season, he only played 37 games – within the confines of a normal season now. It’s interesting to see that the 30 goal mark has been broken in the last 3 (soon to be 4) seasons. Is La Liga getting easier?

When looking at the goals per minute, it’s Messi once again that does this business with a goal every 83.53 minutes. That works out better than a goal a game, and when allowing for injury time at the end of both halves of football – Ronaldo and Romario pretty much equal that with goals every 94 and 91.9 minutes. In terms of games scored in, Ronaldo walks this one, with a massive 23. It’s up to you the reader to decide if it’s better to score in more games, or to score multiple times in fewer games. Ronaldo can certainly say his goals influenced more games than the other players.

Winner: It’s a joint win for Ronaldo and Messi on this one. Messi equalled Ronaldo’s 34 in less games/minutes, but Ronaldo did it in more games. It’s also easy to argue that Messi’s team mates were better than Ronaldo’s. Honourable mention to Romario.

Big Game Players:

And so on to round 2, and the lifeblood of this site – who was most effective in the big games? Once again, unfortunately I don’t have the assists available for each player – so whilst they may have dominated the game without scoring (see Messi vs Real Madrid in 2010/11), we’re solely looking at goals.

Well well well. I didn’t just put it together like this so that Ronaldinho and Rivaldo could prevent it from turning into a 2 horse race. It’s certainly interesting that the two Playmakers have the best average ranked opposition per goal. Even though they scored the least amount of goals, they had the mentality to perform in the big games – more so than the small games. They’re the only two on the list that have more goals against the Top 6 than the Bottom 6. It was certainly levelled at Ronaldinho that he didn’t always turn up for the small games (mentally not physically) – and this goes some way to proving it.

Big game? That’ll be Real Madrid. Interestingly, all 5 players scored against arch rivals Real Madrid in their Barca careers, though Ronaldinho didn’t manage it in his most prolific season (a young Messi did though). Romario banged in a hat trick in a 5-0 whitewash, Ronaldo scored the winner in a 1-0 win whilst chasing the Madrid club for the title, Rivaldo scored in a 3-0 win, and Messi scored in a 2-0 win at the Berbebeu.

Although Ronaldinho didn’t have the goal against Madrid, he did score against the teams in 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th. And this was a league table where 3rd placed Sevilla were only 5 points off the title, rather than the 24 points that Valencia are behind in today’s table.

Messi has the most goals against Top 6 opposition with 10, but this was in a league where 3rd placed Valencia finished 28 points behind the Champions, and 6th placed Getafe were 41 points off Top spot – whilst only 22 off relegation. The gap between 1st and 6th was only 16 points in Ronaldinho’s 2006-07 season – the lowest by someway – adding to the importance of Top 6 goals.

Ronaldo and Romario fall victim to being consistent with an expected split weighted towards the middle range, and it’s worth noting that Ronaldo’s goals against the Top 6 opposition were worth more points (6) than any of the others.

Winner:Although his star had started to fade, it was Ronaldinho’s big game mentality that shone through. He scored twice the amount of goals against Top 6 as he did against Bottom 6, had the best Average ranked opposition for each goal, and the league he played in was still very very competitive. The only he didn’t notch against Real, he did against all the other challengers.

Importance to team – goals as points:

The last measure is based on the importance of the goals. It’s not an exact science but it does give a basis to measure the importance of a goal. For the mathematics behind it, click on the Rules and Workings page. So if we take Romario’s hat trick against Real Madrid as an example, he’d receive zero points for his treble as the team won 5-0. If you take his goals away, then they’d still win 2-0. Similarly, Rivaldo’s hat trick against Valencia in 2001 was worth all 3 points as they were the only Barca goals in a 3-2 win. Take them out and the team lose 0-2. So with that in mind:

Despite scoring less goals than Romario, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, it’s Rivaldo who’s goals were most important to his team. His 24 goals were woth a massive 20 points to Barcelona’s final tally of 79. This means that he also leads the way in the percentage of team points he was responsible for, with a mightily impressive 25.32. Barcelona went on to win the title that year and usually you’d expect the Champions points spread quite wide across a team. It’s not unusual to see a struggling team have a stand out player for points, as the team points is that much lower, so to score goals worth a quarter of the final tally is very impressive.

Ronaldo once again is there are there abouts. His 34 league goals were worth 17 points as Bobby Robson’s team just missed out on the title by 2 points to Real Madrid. If he’d played all the games, it’s likely that he would have made the difference. He edges out his predecessor Romario who had a credible 16 points. Surprisingly enough, Messi and Ronaldinho’s goals were only worth 13 points – 13.13% and 16.67% of the the over all points tally.

Although they were less important that the other players, Messi is ahead on the percentage of the team goals scored with 34.69% – narrowly ahead of Ronaldo and Romario.

Winner:This one has to go to Rivaldo. Whilst he scored less goals than than 3 of the other contendors, the goals he did score were worth more to his team. Honourable mention to Ronaldo who won 17 points, and scored a third of his teams goals.

Overall Winner:

With wins for each player (aside from Romario) across the three categories, it’s incredibly hard to call this one. Each reader will have their own opinion as to which parameter is most important. Some may well argue that stats don’t tell the whole story – and i’d agree to an extent, as there is no measurement on assists, on brilliance, beauty, style etc…..Personally, Ronaldo is my favourite footballer of all time, regardless of the stats, but regular readers will no that I don’t like to sit on the fence, nor let my preconceptions shape the outcome.

As a result, I decided to rank the players on each measurement and work out the average position. And so, without further ado, I give you:

Overall Winner:

Well it looks like Messi has done it again. Taking into account every single parameter, he just edges out Ronaldo with a average rank of 2.4 across the 10 measurements, with Ronaldo averaging 2.5. It’s no surprise that the order is the same as the number of goals scored.

Whilst he appears set to be crowned Barcelona’s all time greatest player – and 3 Champions League titles of their 4 would suggest it’s justified, it’s worth noting that Ronaldo’s 34 league goals (and 47 overall) came when he was just 19 years old. Messi’s season at 19 read played 26, scored 14 (17 in 36 overall). So whilst Messi is the winner here, i’d stick my neck out and say that had Ronaldo stayed at Barcelona, and avoided injuries, then he would have won.

Interestingly, if you remove the percentage of team goals statistic, then Messi and Ronaldo are level.

In Conclusion:

All five players were among the best of their generation, and arguably of all time. It’s a shame that Romario and Ronaldo’s stay was so short as they both had their best seasons with the club, and it meant that the comparison was restricted to just one season per player.

Whilst Messi tops the league in this comparison, he still falls short on the international stage. The four Brazilians have World Cup and Copa America glory, and until Messi wins big and performs well on the biggest stage, there will still be some doubting his place on the football pantheon, alongside Pele, Maradona and Zidane. I would also put Ronaldo on that list. He’s the all time top scorer in the World Cup, he’s the three time World Player of the year, and he had to overcome three career threatening injuries resulting in having to change his game. A good piece of trivia is that he is the only player to have scored on both sides of the Clasico and the Milan derbies. Ronaldo aged 17-21 is one of the greatest players of all time, and better than Messi at the same age.

Luckily for Messi, there were no measurements based on partying.

Further Viewing:

Enjoy:

Romario 1993/94

Ronaldo 1996/97 Top 10 (The top 3 are ridiculous)

Ronaldo 1996/97 All Goals

Rivaldo 1998/99

Ronaldinho 2006/07

Messi 2009/10

Apologies for the length of this one, but with five players (and five of the all time best), it’s hard to keep the word count down. Make up your own mind who you think was best for Barca. The stats say Messi, my own personal choice is Ronaldo, but it differs for everyone. I hope you enjoyed the latest Player Comparison, and as always, all suggestions are welcome. Whether you want an in depth anaysis, or are just wondering about the stats of a few players to settle a pub argument.

Cheers,

Liam

World Cup Finals – Striker Light?

What happens to the World’s leading goalscorers in World Cup Finals?

Jurgen Klinsmann, Romario, Bebeto, Roberto Baggio, Miroslav Klose, Oliver Bierhoff, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Del Piero, Francesco Totti, Thierry Henry, David Trezeguet, Robin van Persie, David Villa, Fernando Torres. All great players, all big names, all prolific scorers.

Between them they have 77 goals in World Cup tournaments.

All have played in World Cup Finals, all have failed to score.

The principal reason for starting this site was to see who the big game players were, and by looking at the ranking of the opponents, we’ve been able to identify these to an extent. But what of the biggest game of all? When researching the Thierry Henry vs Ruud van Nistelrooy comparison, I noticed the quality of Forwards on show in France’s 1998 and 2006 World Cup Final appearances. Brazil’s Ronaldo and Bebeto,  France’s Thierry Henry and Trezeguet, and Italy’s Del Piero, Toni, and Totti. All quality players, yet none made an impact on the scoresheet.

And it’s not just the 1998 and 2006 Finals. The 1986 Final saw goals from Burruchaga and Valdano for the winners Argentina, whilst Voller and Rummenigge did the same for the West Germans in a 3-2 defeat. Since then only one Striker has scored in the biggest game in World Football. Granted, it’s only once every four years, but that’s still 6 games, 12 teams, and on average two strikers per team – 24 opportunities. Only the great (and real) Ronaldo has managed to break the pattern with his 2 goals in 2002 – and the big story there was redemption from the 1998 Final, where he was anonymous – albeit under strange circumstances.

Two great Forwards, only one truly big game Scorer

On closer inspection, you could argue that the big game players in those Finals have been the defenders and keepers. On 6 occasions in the 6 World Cup Finals from 1990, there has been clean sheets kept. In fact, the only occasion that the runner ups have scored was in the 2006 Final, when Zidane scored from the spot, before seeing red.

Last 6 World Cup Finals

Indeed, the 2010 World Cup Final saw some vital saves from Iker Casillas, whilst the 1998 and 2006 winners, France and Italy, were teams built on strong defensive models. In those 6 World Cups there were five goals for Midfielders, and two each for Defenders and Forwards.

So why is this the case?

Change in Mentality:

For a start, the games are now a lot tighter. The menatality seems to have changed from the beautiful attacking game, to keeping it tight and building from the back. Although the 1986 Final was a classic, certainly in terms of goals scored, the change in mentality can be traced back to the 1982 World Cup. Most commentators regularly nominate the 1970 Brazil team as the best side of all time, however, there is also a case for the 1982 side. Containing the likes of Zico, Socrates and Falcao, it has been described by many as the best team of all time, and certainly the best to watch. However, their lack of silverware coupled with a similar failure for Holland’s Total Football team in the 1970s convinced coaches that attractive football didn’t win trophies, as described more eloquently here and here.

The average number of goals in the last 6 finals is a miserly 1.5 per game. By way of comparison, the previous 6 finals generated a massive 27 goals, at an average of 4.5 goals per game.

Previous 6 World Cup Finals

Not a clean sheet in sight, which perhaps best illustrates the change in mentality. Of the 27 goals, 16 were scored by the front men. Comparing different era’s can never be conclusive due to all of the different factors, but a swing from 4.5 goals per game to 1.5 per game certainly points to a trend.

The Occasion:

There’s also the small matter of the Occasion. Whilst the World Cup Final has always been the biggest game in World football, the scale has undoubtedly increased, with the number of teams, the number of viewers and the coverage. The fact that the game is once every 4 years also adds to it. The idea of making a mistake at this level, with the World’s eyes on you, and having to wait 4 years to make ammends (see Ronaldo) must undoubtedly play a part.

So what of the next biggest games in Football – The European Championship Final and the Copa America Final. After that, you have Champions League Final, though of course this is repeated on an annual basis. So are those finals similarly troublesome for Forwards?

European Championships Finals

Well the short answer is no. Of the last 6 European Championships Finals, there’s been 9 goals by the forwards, including the last 7 . Interstingly enough, Bierhoff, Torres, Wiltord and Trezeguet have all played in a World Cup Final without scoring.

Upon further investigation, the same patterns seen in the change of era and mentality can also be applied to the Euro’s when comparing to the 6 prior finals – though not to a same extent. The average number of goals in the last 6 finals is 2 compared to 3 goals in the previous 6 finals. There were also only 2 clean sheets in the finals from 1964 to 1984 as opposed to the 4 in the last 6.

Similarly, for the South American equivalent, the Copa America, there’s no problem for the Strikers there either. Of the last 6 tournament finals, only the 2001 Final won by Colombia didn’t have a goal by a forward. And that Tournament was different due to the stay away stars – after fear of kidnapping. It was the host’s Ivan Cordoba (DF) that settled it that year. In the other years? Ronaldo (in two finals), Rivaldo, Adriano, Suarez, Forlan, Edmundo and Delgado were all on the score sheet. As the tournament was previously held every 2 years, even going back to 1993 saw a couple by Garbiel Batistuta. Familiar names, performing on one of the biggest stages, but not the biggest.

And then there’s the Champions League. It doesn’t take much investigation to see the impact that forwards have had on the most recent finals – Messi, Villa, Pedro and Rooney all scored in 2011, Diego Milito grabbed a brace in 2010, whilst Messi and Eto did the business in 2009, both having scored in two separate finals.

All massive tournaments, but not the big one. Not the best players in the whole world and not the same coverage. The World Cup Final is the pinnacle in the career of any player, and it’s only natural that nerves play a part in the biggest occasion of their careers.

Form:

There’s also the matter of player form, both in the Tournament and the proceeding season. The 2010 World Cup Final showcased the talents of Robin van Persie, Fernando Torres, and David Villa, with supporting roles played by Kuyt, Robben and van der Vaart.

Robin van Persie wasn’t fully fit going into the tournament

Looking at the form and fitness leading into the Tournaments, in 2010 Robin van Persie and Fernando Torres were battling for full fitness, and it showed. Since the 2010 Final, van Persie has scored a phenomenal 50 goals in 63 games for Arsenal, whilst Torres had 39 in 70 games for Liverpool before the tournament. Timing can be very important with over coming injuries. Torres for example was injured from April 2010, and endured a miserable World Cup, with no goals in seven games. Similarly, van Persie only scored one goal in the same number of games, whilst not fully fit. However, Brazil’s Ronaldo had missed the best part of 2 years with serious knee injuries going into the 2002 tournament, but crucially, his return to fitness allowed him to play 16 games for Inter, and regain some of his match fitness and sharpness. With that momentum in force, he went on to score 8 goals, and is the only Forward to score in Football’s biggest game since 1986.

World Cup Final Forwards 2002-2010

In terms of club season, notable efforts include Henry and Toni’s 33 goal hauls, Trezeguet’s 29 and Villa’s 28. Yet despite the great club form, none of them could manage it in the World Cup Final. In terms of tournament form, Klose, Rivaldo and Villa all had impressive totals of 5 goals in their 6 apperances prior to the Final, but yet again, none were able to repeat the recent good form in the Final.

Summary:

There isn’t a clear conclusion on why Forwards have a poor goal scoring record in recent World Cup Finals. There is the changing dynamics of football tactics, which have certainly contributed to the number of goals scored, but that doesn’t explain why Midfielders have still managed to get in on the scoring. Perhaps you can point to the tight marking that Forwards have to endure, whilst they make space for the players running from deep. But then when we’ve looked at the other big games outside of the World Cup, the pattern hasn’t repeated – with Forwards dominating the goal scoring.

There’s the pressure of the biggest spectator event in the World hanging over the players, something that leads them to be terrified to make mistakes, and play safely, and perhaps even within themselves somewhat. With that pressure, there is the need for a strong psychology. It’s surely no coincidence that Ronaldo scored in his second World Cup Final appearance (as did Zidane).

There’s other aspects as well that haven’t been covered above – such as how their team mates have performed. Strikers very much rely on the rest of the team to create chances for them. If the rest of the team are also playing it safe, and with the opposition much more defensive (as we’ve seen), then all the clever running and positioning in the world won’t help in front of goal, unless you have the ball.

So in conclusion, the changing mentality of tactics, the pressure of the event, the luck with injuries and the performances of their team mates, all contribute to a Forwards chances of scoring in the World Cup Final.

And nerve.

Look at the major Finals that Brazil’s Ronaldo has played in, 1998 World Cup excluded (on medical grounds). He has played and scored in the 2002 World Cup Final, the 1997 and 1999 Copa America Finals, the 1997 Cup Winners Cup Final, and the 1998 UEFA Cup Final. He epitomises the big game mentality that’s needed. Similarly, Zinedine Zidane had the same mentality, scoring in two World Cup Finals, and a Champions League Final. It’s this ability to perform on the biggest stages that makes them truly great players.