In Search of the Greatest World Cup Goal Scorer – Part IV: Game Winning Goals

So let’s take the concept of important goals to its extreme conclusion: the most important goal of any game is the game winning goal – if, of course, there is a winner. Now, in most cases, it is intuitive which goal is the game winning goal, but just to properly define it:

The game winning goal is the first goal that puts the winning team’s score beyond the score of the losing team.

So, if we go back to the examples of the previous post, the game winning goals of the five mentioned World Cup finals are:

• 1938 Italy-Hungary 4-2: Colaussi (3-1)
• 1954 Germany-Hungary 3-2: Rahn (3-2)
• 1958 Brazil-Sweden 5-2: Pelé (3-1)
• 1966 England-Germany 4=2: Hurst (3-2)
• 1998 France-Brazil 3-0: Zidane (1-0)

So, in Pelé’s 1958 case, he scored Brazil’s third goal which is the game winner as Sweden only managed 2 goals. 20 years earlier, Colaussi’s goal was the game winner for the same reason, while Zidane’s game winner in 1998 was the first goal as Brazil failed to score at all. So far, so good. Now, before looking at the list of the most game winning goals, let’s quickly consider adjusting this count by the goal value. Well, in every game there can only be one game winning goal (if at all). For that, even if a game was played in an era of many goals, this would not inflate the rate of game winning goals. So, to me it is not necessary to make the goal value adjustment in this case. So, here then is the top 11 in game winning goals (GW) scored:

		Name	Goals	GW	GWR	GWA
1		Grzegorz Lato	10	7	0.700	0.350
2		Pelé	12	6	0.500	0.429
3		Gerd Müller	14	6	0.429	0.462
4		Salvatore Schillaci	6	5	0.833	0.714
5		Teófilo Cubillas	10	5	0.500	0.385
6		David Villa	9	4	0.444	0.333
7		Jairzinho	9	4	0.444	0.250
		Roberto Baggio	9	4	0.444	0.250
9		Jürgen Klinsmann	11	4	0.364	0.235
10		Ronaldo	15	4	0.267	0.211
11		Miroslav Klose	16	4	0.250	0.167

Look at that! Grzegorz Lato leads the listing. 7 of his 10 goals were game winners and while he got pushed down via GV and IF, he shines here. Congratulations. Of course, this list also demonstrates the immense value of Gerd Müller and Pelé to their teams. Both got devalued due to GV and Pelé’s IF and IFV were not all that great. But they managed to decide 6 World Cup games and that is impressive in itself. On the flip side, despite their magnitude of goals scored, Miroslav Klose and Ronaldo only have 4 game winners! That in my opinion would be a major counter argument to their goal scoring brilliance. And Just Fontaine? Well, he is faaar down the list with a single (!) game winning goal among the 13 he scored at the 1958 World Cup.

I also list GWR, the ratio of game winning goals among overall goals, and GWA, the average of game winning goals. These are more to underline the quality of the game winner count. Ranking them by themselves, may lead to unwanted rankings (esp. for the GWR). And looking at the GWR values in the list above, we see that Salvatore Schillaci’s only World Cup in 1990 was truly one for the ages. 5 of his 6 goals in 7 games played (2 as a late substitute) were game winners, which in itself is a remarkable and barely repeatable feat. Among players with at least 5 overall goals and at least three games, he leads both categories. Notable players with high GWR (>0.5) not on this list are Bobby Charlton and Andreas Brehme with GWR of 0.75 (3 GW out of 4) as well as Gonzalo Higuaín, Geoff Hurst, Hans Krankl, Johan Neeskens, Lukas Podolski, Romário and Luis Suárez with a GWR of 0.6 (3 GW out of 5). There are also 18 players with 2GW out of 3 total goals, but I won’t list them here. If you are interest, feel free to contact me.

Now, GWA is a bit more telling and it is probably worth listing the Top 10:

		Name	GA	GW	GWR	GWA
1		Salvatore Schillaci	0.857	5	0.833	0.714
2		Geoff Hurst	0.833	3	0.600	0.500
3		Oldřich Nejedlý	1.167	3	0.429	0.500
4		Silvio Piola	1.250	2	0.400	0.500
5		Ademir	1.333	3	0.375	0.500
6		Gerd Müller	1.077	6	0.429	0.462
7		Pelé	0.857	6	0.500	0.429
8		Óscar Míguez	1.143	3	0.375	0.429
9		Max Morlock	1.200	2	0.333	0.400
10		Leônidas	1.600	2	0.250	0.400

As with GWR, Schillaci reigns supreme. But overall, this list features some of the most interesting and celebrated players of World Cup lore. Hurst, Müller, Pelé are well known and Ademir and Leônidas at least have been mentioned in my blog already. However Nejedly, Piola, Miguez and Morlock are some of the most prolific goal scorers of the 1930s and 1950s and were all important pieces in their teams successes. While I still maintain that in terms of game winning goals, the quantity probably is more important than the average, I really like this list here and the fact how it spans a wide range of World Cups. If a more recent player than Schillaci was featured in here, then I would give it even more credence. As it stands, the most recent players in the Top 20 are Davor Suker at 13 and David Villa at 15.

In itself, both of these rankings were very interesting and informative, how can we combine them with the previous attempts at the ultimate goal scorer. To me, I like it easy and would just combine IFV and GW as well as IFA and GWA by simple addition. Just for illustration, this would bump all the game winning goals by an additional point. Yes, we are entering the realm where a goal could potentially count double or more, but to me, this inflation seems necessary to delineate the really important goals from the ones that are just running up the score. In this sense, the scores below and in future posts should be more interpreted as a goal scoring rating than an equivalence value of goals. So, here is the combined total rating, which I call IWV:

		Name	Goals	GW	IFV	IWV
1		Miroslav Klose	16	4	10.678	14.678
2		Gerd Müller	14	6	8.615	14.615
3		Grzegorz Lato	10	7	7.358	14.358
4		Ronaldo	15	4	9.539	13.539
5		Pelé	12	6	5.906	11.906
6		Jürgen Klinsmann	11	4	7.849	11.849
7		Roberto Baggio	9	4	7.361	11.361
8		David Villa	9	4	7.141	11.141
9		Paolo Rossi	9	3	8.031	11.031
10		Salvatore Schillaci	6	5	5.901	10.901

That Klose guy is quite resilient! But then, he did score many important goals, four of which were also game winners. And while four is not the top value, it is enough to put him in the top 10 and he is not too much off the mark. Lato of course got a big push up the ranking, but the rest are all familiar names with a slight skew towards more recent World Cup tournaments. Now, using the combined averages or IWA, we also slightly change the ranking as compared to the previous IFA one:

		Name	GA	GWA	IFA	IWA
1		Salvatore Schillaci	0.857	0.714	0.843	1.557
2		Leônidas	1.600	0.400	0.783	1.183
3		Geoff Hurst	0.833	0.500	0.655	1.155
4		Oleg Salenko	2.000	0.333	0.819	1.152
5		Just Fontaine	2.167	0.167	0.982	1.148
6		Eusébio	1.500	0.333	0.793	1.126
7		Gerd Müller	1.077	0.462	0.663	1.124
8		Josef Hügi	2.000	0.333	0.784	1.118
9		Silvio Piola	1.250	0.500	0.602	1.102
10		Oldřich Nejedlý	1.167	0.500	0.556	1.056

That was not a big surprise, wasn’t it? With all his supreme goal scoring skills at the 1990 World Cup, Schillaci was bound to end up on top of this list. The great Leônidas and Geoff Hurst round up the top 3, which I am not entirely happy with, but I recognize all three players were great goal scorers at their respective World Cup tournaments. Interestingly, two of these were top scorers, but ultimately did finish 3rd with their respective teams, while the other won a World Cup, but was not the top scorer. Just an observation. Just Fontaine was bound to drop, and Gerd Müller was bound to rise, but did not overtake the French. And then, there is of course Oleg Salenko. Repeating myself, 5 goals in agame are an extraordinary feat. But considering the opposition and the fact that they came in a quasi meaningless game, I simply cannot justify a ranking in which Oleg Salenko is featured in the top 10.

Clearly, our journey is not finished yet. We have so far considered the value of the goals when comparing them between World Cups, the time when a goal was scored within a single game and now added game winning goals. But as the Oleg Salenko case illustrates, it should also matter how important the actual game was. I would rather take Gerd Müllers World Cup winning goal against a fabulous Dutch team in 1974 over Salenko’s 5 goals against Cameroon any day. To be continued …

Argentina (Home 2015)

With this great jersey together with the current away jersey, Adidas issued the perfect set for the albiceleste. Watch the video and I dare you to argue with me. 😉

My rating: 10/10 stars.

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SSC Napoli (Away 2014/15)

Napoli is having a good season again. They are probably a bit too far off the pace in Serie A, but not since the times of Diego Maradona have they reached a European semifinal – and that after the disappointment of failing to qualify for the Champions League. I am sure that the fans were rather jubilous after drawing FC Dnipro as the opponent for their semifinal clash and equally disappointed when the team only managed a 1-1 draw at home. No disrespect to FC Dnipro, but I still fancy Napoli’s chances. I only wish they would go back playing in their current home jersey rather than the away jersey that we will look at now:

The jersey actually comes in two versions: one as the Serie A away jersey (shown on the left) and the slightly more garish European away jersey. I will focus on the latter in this post. I guess the first thing anyone will notice is that this is another denim jersey and another pay with non-soccer fabric after last years camouflage and extreme camouflage jerseys. Well, I referenced Napoli so often in the denim Marseille post, that Napoli seemingly got a denim jersey of their own. Well, this one has a classic jeans-shirt look thanks to the dress collar. Also, the seams are kept to a necessary minimum. There are a few light blue accents to remind us of the club’s colors, namely on the opening of the collar and the sleeve trims (and the Macron logo on the Serie A version). As last year, the main sponsor is pushed quite high up and is figured in an unsightly red shield. That moves the supplier’s logo and the crest (as well as the Coppa Italia shield) quite high up – way above the chest and more onto the shoulders. I wish they finally would get it right. It all makes more sense on the Serie A version as the jersey features one more sponsor. Now, to the crazy: on the European jersey the supplier’s logo as well as the Macron logos on the sleeves and the circular frame around the crest are in a birght green tone (light blue on the Serie A version). Yes, you got me! Bright green! What has this color to do with Napoli?

The name and the numbers are also in this near impossible green tone as is a tiny SSC Napoli wordmark just below the collar. In addition the lettering style is quite odd upon closer inspection with two horizontal breaks. This makes one almost forget about the blue trim to the bottom of the back. Needless to say that all these green features are in a more reasonable light blue on the “regular” Serie A away jersey.

The jeans shirt does not look too bad. But the green puts it over the top! Yes, it is striking and you won’t forget it and maybe that is what Macron and Napoli want. I find it slightly distasteful and just not fitting. Neither with the jersey nor the club. And this way, you have an example how lettering and accents can ruin an otherwise nice looking shirt.

My rating: 4/10 stars.

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Argentina (Away 2014)

Another World Cup another non-standard Argentina away jersey – actually it was quite a mess and made only one appearance: in the 2014 World Cup Final. Quite a high profile gig for such a premiere. 🙂

My Soccer Universe

We come to one of the two giants of South America: Argentina’s albi-celeste. Well, if they are wearing their alternate jerseys, that name is not accurate anymore as they revert to a dark blue jersey. The shade of which is changing seemingly with every tournament. Initially, it was a solid blue tone akin to the Italian home jersey. Given te multitude of Italians living in Argentina as well as the close connection between these countries, a very appropriate choice. Come 1998, the blue got darker with the colors of the Argentinian flag used as accents – one of my all-time favorite color combinations. However, the blue shirt was briefly re-introduced in time for the 2010 World Cup, only to be supplanted by a darker blue shirt for the 2011 Copa America. So, there was quite some interest on my part of what color Adidas would choose this time around.

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SSC Napoli (Away 2013/14)

The post you have all been waiting for – maybe. This shirt is one of the most controversial and unique of the current season. And it sold like crazy! So, without further ado, I present the SSC Napoli camouflage away jersey:

For this jersey, Macron uses the same basic template as for the home jersey. In fact, collar and sleeve trims are identical. The actual shape of the collar is actually better visible here with the front of the collar having a downward-pointing triangle. This feature was kind of hidden on the home jersey. The rest of the jersey features a typical dark green camouflage pattern, which (unfortunately) does not extend to the sleeves. Other than that, the sponsors are as much in your face as on the other Napoli jerseys.

Keeping with the theme, the back is also all camouflage with blue names and numbers. These may have been better visible in white, but this way it keeps with the tone of the jersey. As mentioned previously, I find the number a bit odd looking due to the 3D-effect.

I think your appreciation of the jersey very much depends on your appreciation of the troops or camouflage fashion in general. To me it is not a great look for a sports jersey and I have been exposed too much to this kind of jersey during my time in the States. On the other side, the look is not too crazy and definitely looks better than that greenish away jersey Real Madrid used last season. So, all in all, my reaction is ambivalent:

My rating: 5/10 stars.

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