In Search of the Greatest World Cup Goal Scorer – Part I: Using Raw Numbers

One of the most celebrated individual statistics at the World Cup is the scoring leader and by extension the overall scoring leader. And this overall scoring leader is what we want to look at here, although by way of getting there, we also have to look at the top scorer at each World Cup. So, let’s look at what is the all time scoring list

		Name	Goals	Games	Avg.	Tournaments
1		Miroslav Klose	16	24	0.67	2002, 2006, 2010, 2014
2		Ronaldo	15	19	0.79	1994, 1998, 2002, 2006
3		Gerd Müller	14	13	1.08	1970, 1974
4		Just Fontaine	13	6	2.17	1958
5		Pelé	12	14	0.86	1958, 1962, 1966, 1970
6		Sándor Kocsis	11	5	2.20	1954
		Jürgen Klinsmann	11	17	0.65	1990, 1994, 1998
8		Helmut Rahn	10	10	1.00	1954, 1958
		Gary Lineker	10	12	0.83	1986, 1990
		Gabriel Batistuta	10	12	0.83	1994, 1998, 2002
		Teófilo Cubillas	10	13	0.77	1970, 1978, 1982
		Thomas Müller	10	13	0.77	2010, 2014
		Grzegorz Lato	10	20	0.50	1974, 1978, 1982

End of discussion? Miroslav Klose is the leading scorer of all time! Not so fast! This list is merely a starting point for me. 🙂 But before delving into further analysis, let’s just applaud Germany for having five scorers in the top 10 (which is actually a top 14 due to the tie in 8th). Brazil has two all-time greats high in the list, but not the density below. Also surprising is the fact that despite many big names, there really is no Italian listed here (Christian Vieri, Paolo Rossi and Roberto Baggio all have 9 goals). But then, you don’t think about goal scoring prowess when you think about Italy, do you?

Now, what is wrong with that list? As we will see quite a few things with the most obvious fact that of course you are bound to feature high on the list if you play a lot of games at a World Cup. And while I do not want to discredit Klose, his tally is mostly due to longevity. Same goes for Klinsmann and Lato. Compared to G. Müller, Fontaine and Kocsis this seems to be a slightly unfair listing. And longevity is not the only factor here, but also that due to the increase in teams at the World Cup more games are played in general. The maximum number of games in 1954 were 6 if you had a qualifying playoff, but Hungary only needed 5 as clear winners of their group (more on that odd format here). From 1958-1970, the finalists all played 6 games and only since do finalists play 7 games. So, obviously a better measure  would be a relative performance measure such as goals per game. Let’s see:

		Name	Goals	Games	Avg	Tournaments
1		Sándor Kocsis	11	5	2.20	1954
2		Just Fontaine	13	6	2.17	1958
3		Guillermo Stábile	8	4	2.00	1930
		Josef Hügi	6	3	2.00	1954
		Oleg Salenko	6	3	2.00	1994
6		Leônidas	8	5	1.60	1934, 1938
7		Eusébio	9	6	1.50	1966
8		Ademir	8	6	1.00	1950
9		Pedro Cea	5	4	0.83	1930
		Silvio Piola	5	4	0.83	1938
		Gyula Zsengellér	5	4	0.83	1938

Disclaimer first, before we discuss this listing: Only players with at least 5 overall goals and 3 games are considered. Why? Because I feel to be considered the greatest World Cup goal scorer, you should score either a sufficient amount of goals and have played in a few games. 5 and 3, respectively seem good thresholds. Or just look at FIFA’s listing and you will see plenty of players from the 1930s with only one or two games showing up. This, in my opinion, taints the goal average.

What do we observe? Do we recognize any of these? Well, as a World Cup nut all these names are not foreign to me, but looking at when these players achieved these scores, there is a clear bias towards the early days of the World Cup. The most recent one is Oleg Salenko who achieved his incredible tally mostly in a 5 goal rout of a desolate Cameroon team in 1994. The other players mostly benefited from the fact that in the early days of the World Cup more goals were scored.

So, both are valid lists, but both are not perfect. The list of total goals scored hands an advantage to players who play more games and thus played more recently. The other not only benefits players who score a lot of goals in just a handful, but also hands an advantage to players from the early days. So, we need to find a balance and that is what I will try to do over the next few posts.

All the footballers in this post a worth checking out and I have provided Wikipedia links. Especially the ones from the first 10 (or so) World Cups often come with great stories attached to them. One of my favorites is that the top scorer of the first World Cup in Uruguay, Guillermo Stabile, played for Argentina only at that tournament – never before, never after! And, he scored in every single one of his appearances.