Best Goal Scorer in Big Games

Miguel Delaney, looks into the stats of players’ performances in big game scenarios.

In order to attempt to investigate which modern and historical players truly rise to the occasion, he looked at their records in four main types of game:

• international tournament knock-out stages and group matches in which a result was essential
• semi-finals and finals in domestic cup competitions
• any match against those in the top three of their domestic division or historically-established rivals
• any league match where, due to a league, Champions League, relegation or simple record, a result was essential.

As goes without saying, this list only covers scoring records in big games and not general performance. For example, it does not legislate for the manner in which Roy Keane dominated Juventus in 1999, the way in which Diego Maradona cut open the West German defence with one pass to win it in the 1986 World Cup, or the fashion in which Johan Cruyff frequently opened up Inter at will in the 1973 European Cup final. As such, this list does not mean any of these players were ‘better’ big-game players – they just performed a much more quantifiable role.

In saying that, a few notes from the lists:

• from comparing historic players, it appears that anything above 0.2 decisive goals per big game (Raul, Francesco Totti, Zlatan Ibrahimovic) is a good record. Anything between 0.1 and 0.2 (Bobby Charlton, Steven Gerrard, Kenny Dalglish, Ruud Gullit) is very respectable
• the biggest discrepancy between decisive goals (0.16) and simple number of goals (0.62) surprisingly belongs to Ferenc Puskas . It seems that his finishes decorated big matches rather than decided them.
• the most efficient scorer is Zinedine Zidane.

 

The key list: most likely to decide a big game

* note: only game-changing goals were included; those which definitely decided the final result and distribution of points, eg, match-winner or final

Player	Big games	Decisive goals	Ratio
Pele	31	12	0.39
Leo Messi	41	16	0.37
Ronaldo (Luiz Nazario de Lima)	97	35	0.36
Eusebio	33	11	0.33
Alfredo Di Stefano	63	20	0.32
Michel Platini	57	18	0.32
David Villa	53	17	0.32
Gerd Muller	63	20	0.31
Rivaldo	59	17	0.29
Didier Drogba	82	27	0.29
Marco van Basten	46	13	0.28
Denis Law	53	12	0.27
Thierry Henry	95	26	0.27
Ian Rush	74	27	0.27
George Best	54	14	0.26

 

The most likely to score in any given big game

Player	Big games	Number of individual games scored in	Ratio
Pele	31	19	0.61
Eusebio	33	18	0.55
Alfredo Di Stefano	63	34	0.54
Gerd Muller	63	32	0.51
Ronaldo (Luiz Nazario Da Lima)	97	49	0.49
Leo Messi	41	20	0.49
Michel Platini	57	28	0.49
Rivaldo	59	27	0.46
Ferenc Puskas	37	17	0.46
David Villa	53	24	0.45
Andriy Shevchenko	43	19	0.44
Romario	34	14	0.41
Cristiano Ronaldo	86	35	0.41
Denis Law	53	21	0.4
Ronaldinho	86	35	0.41

 

Most goals per big game

Player	Games	Goals	Ratio
Pele	31	32	1.03
Eusebio	33	27	0.81
Alfredo Di Stefano	63	49	0.78
Leo Messi	41	31	0.76
Gerd Muller	63	47	0.75
Romario	34	25	0.74
Ronaldo (Luiz Nazario de Lima)	97	65	0.67
Ferenc Puskas	37	23	0.62
Rivaldo	59	36	0.61
David Villa	53	31	0.59
Michel Platini	57	33	0.58
Andriy Shevchenko	43	24	0.55
Denis Law	53	28	0.53
Ian Rush	74	39	0.53
Cristiano Ronaldo	86	42	0.49

To read more on Miguel Delaney’s article: http://eircomsports.eircom.net/News/greatest-big-game-scorer.aspx