I found this mildly interesting. He wouldn't have been my guess for third! I would have guessed Rooney.
Here's the top ten in case you're interested:
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- Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) 75 goals in 14 years/143 appearances
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- Lionel Messi (Argentina) 58 goals in 12 years/118 appearances
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- Clint Dempsey (USA) 57 goals in 13 years/137 appearances
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- Sunil Chhetri (India) 54 goals in 12 years/94 appearances
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- Wayne Rooney (England) 53 goals in 14 years/119 appearances
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- Ali Ashfaq (Maldives) 52 goals in 14 years/77 appearances
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- Neymar (Brazil) 52 goals in 7 years/77 appearances
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- Asamoah Gyan (Ghana) 51 goals in 14 years/105 appearances
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- Bader Al-Mutawa (Kuwait) 51 goals in 14 years/158 appearances
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- Edin Dzeko (Bosnia ) 50 goals in 10 years/85 appearances
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- Shinji Okazaki (Japan) 50 goals in 9 years/108 apperances
EDIT: Shinji Okazaki (Japan) has also scored 50 goals, so is joint 10th.
EDIT2: Credit to /u/Vlaji for years and app info
At the last international break, Ronaldo scored 4 goals against Lithuania to bring him closer to the 109 Goal record set by Ali Daei in March 2006. Those goals prompted a lot of comments downplaying Daei's achievements with the general gist being that Daei played and scored against weaker opponents than Ronaldo. What I didn't see was anyone commenting that Daei also played for a weaker side than Ronaldo. With the next international break coming up, I thought to see if I could provide some insight.
Methodology
The methodology used was quite simple. I wanted to essentially compare the difficulty of the goals scored by each player. To do this, what mattered to me was the difference in strength between the two teams in each game in which a goal was scored. The difference is important because Portugal is objectively stronger than Iran, so against the same opponent, you would expect Ronaldo to have an easier time scoring than Daei because of the quality of the team and players surrounding Ronaldo compared to Daei. The measure of strength was the (pre-match) ELO Rating of each team on the date of the match (obtained from eloratings.net). I obtained a list of goals scored by each player (sourced from Wikipedia), and added in the team ratings, and then calculated the difference (Averages are weighted based on number of goals each player scored in a match). Additionally, I've included two more data points. First, was the match competitive or a friendly? Second, was the goal important? Important goals are goals that are not just padding the score.
For example, consider the 2018 WC Final: France 4-2 Croatia The first 3 goals scored by France and the 2 goals scored by Croatia would be important goals. The 4th France goal is just padding the score and is not important in this case.
Summary Statistics
First, let's have a look at a summary:
| Match Type | Competitive | Friendly | Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Daei | Ronaldo | Daei | Ronaldo | Daei | Ronaldo |
| Goals | 87 | 76 | 22 | 17 | 109 | 93 |
| Competitive % | 100% | 100% | 80% | 82% | ||
| Important Goals | 37 | 52 | 18 | 12 | 55 | 64 |
| Important % | 43% | 68% | 82% | 71% | 50% | 69% |
| Average Elo | 1684 | 1919 | 1736 | 1917 | 1695 | 1918 |
| Average Elo Opp | 1268 | 1572 | 1603 | 1681 | 1335 | 1592 |
| Average Elo Dif | 416 | 347 | 133 | 236 | 359 | 326 |
If we look at the overall summary, we can see that Daei on average scored goals when the opp
... keep reading on reddit ➡
- First goal Matt "odd man rush" Dumba
- Second goal Jason "bad contract" Pominville, but oh wait, never mind it was actually Martin "no production" Hanzal
- Third goal Charlie "can't score" Coyle
Good to see slump busting all around! Let's hope we can keep this up.
LGW!
#1 David de Gea - Not scored...yet
#2 Victor Lindelof - 29th Jan 2019 - Manchester United [2] - 2 Burnley - 94'
#3 Eric Bailly - 19th Aug 2017 - Swansea 0 - [1] Manchester United - 43'
#4 Phil Jones - 3rd Dec 2011 - Aston Villa 0 - [1] Manchester United - 20'
#5 Harry Maguire - 26th Jan 2020 - Tranmere Rovers 0 - [1] Manchester United - 10'
#6 Paul Pogba - 24th Sept 2016 - Manchester United [4] - 0 Leicester City - 42
#8 Juan Mata - 29th Mar 2014 - Manchester United [3] - 1 Aston Villa - 57
#9 Anthony Martial - 12th Sept 2015 - Manchester United [3] - 1 Liverpool - 86'
#10 Marcus Rashford - 25th February 2016 - Manchester United [2] - 1 FC Midtjylland 63'
#13 Lee Grant - :(
#14 Jesse Lingard - 7th Nov 2015 - Manchester United [2] - 0 West Brom
#15 Andreas Pereira - 23rd Sept 2015 - Manchester United [2] - 0 Ipswich
#17 Fred - 22nd Sept 2018 - Manchester United [1] - 0 Wolverhampton Wanderers - 18'
#18 Bruno Fernandes - 23rd Feb 2020 - Manchester United [1] - 0 Watford
#20 Diogo Dalot - 26th Jan 2020 - Tranmere Rovers 0 - [2] Manchester United - 10'
#21 Daniel James - 11th Aug 2019 - Manchester United [4] - 0 Chelsea - 81'
#22 Sergio Romero - If only
#23 Luke Shaw - 10th Aug 2018 - Manchester United [2] - 0 Leicester City - 83'
#24 Timothy Fosu-Mensah - Not scored
#25 Odion Ighalo 27th February 2020 - Manchester United [2] - 0 Club Brugge - 34'
#26 Mason Greenwood - 19th Sept 2019 Manchester United [1] - 0 Astana - '73
#28 Angel Gomes - Not scored...yet
#29 Aaron Wan-Bissaka - Not scored...yet
#31 Nemanja Matić - 5th March 2018 - [Crystal Palace 2 - [3] Manchester United -
... keep reading on reddit ➡
Without pre-season, that's 19 out of 20 goals.
The exception was Dan James's goal against Palace, assisted by Martial
*as a goalie, you buncha wise guys
