Europe's Best Goal Scoring Partnerships

After writing about the Premier League's best goal scoring partnerships a while back, I was inundated (one comment) with requests for something similar for other leagues. So, instead of signing up to do some accountancy exams that I've been putting off for 13 years, I decided the best way to spend some spare time would be to put together another list for absolutely no reward. I hope somebody somewhere enjoys reads this.

With the return to favour of partnerships such as Suarez and Sturridge, (#dare to) Zlatan and Cavani, and Negredo and Aguero, what better time to have a look back at some of the best partnerships before them. Having searched a whole two pages of Google without finding something exactly the same as this, I thought it was time to put together a combined list.

Rules and Workings
I've decided to go back 25 years to cover the 1988-89 to the 2012-13 seasons. Why 25 years? Well that just about covers my football watching memory and it's a nice round number. I've decided to include just the Top four Leagues in Europe - the top divisions in England, Germany, Italy and Spain (based on European Trophies won).

A partnership is only considered so if both players (regardless of position)have scored at least 10 goals each. For this list, I've only combined those pairs with 30 goals or more, so sadly that would exclude van Wolfswinkel and Elmander's herculean haul of 2 goals from this season. Tough break fellas.

A further blow to the Norwich duo's chances are that this season's partnerships are not included as they'll instantly make this post out of date. Expect to see Suarez and Sturridge included in the next update in space year 2038.

Joking aside, as I type, Suarez and Sturridge have just hit their combined 44th, 45th, 46th and 47th goals of the season against Cardiff, so they definitely make it into the Top Partnerships list, but as the season hasn't ended yet, their number is likely to change.

It's worth noting that the German League has fewer games, and the other leagues have varied in number of teams.

And lastly, it's league goals only.

The Stats

In all, there's a whopping 221 instances of 30 goal partnerships in the Top Four European leagues over the last 25 completed seasons - actually a lot higher than I'd expected. Spain lead the way with 70, followed by England (61), Italy (49) and Germany (41). No real shock there as Germany has fewer games, as did Italy for a good chunk of the 25 seasons in question. In terms of clubs represented, there are a decent 61 (Spain 17, England 16, Italy 15 and Germany 13).

At the top end of the food chain are the mighty Real Madrid with a 30 goal partnership in 19 of the 25 seasons recorded. No wonder they win quite a lot. As you'd expect, anything they can do, Barcelona can almost do (that would make a catchy song), and the Catalans are second on the list with a healthy 17 partnerships represented. Aside from Spain, England have Man Utd and Liverpool in double figures (13 + 10), whilst somewhat surprisingly, it's Bayer Leverkusen who lead the way in Germany with 10 partnerships making the 30 goal mark. For Italy, AC Milan are the team with the most deadly duos, featuring 8 times.

At the bottom end, there are 25 clubs with just one 30 goal partnership, sadly, my team don't even have that. The likes of Coventry's Dublin and Huckerby, are joined for their day in the sun by Villarreal's Forlan and Riquelme (2004-05). And who could forget Bochum's world famous Thomas Christiansen and Vahid Hashemian with their 31 goal haul in 2002-03. I know I certainly won't.

The 50 goal club

As mentioned above, there's a great deal of 30 goal partnerships, so many in fact, that I wonder why I used that number. So to get things going, here's a list of those partnerships that scored at least 50 league goals in a season. Just to manage expectations - it's a bit heavy with Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.



In fact it's basically La Liga's greatest partnerships plus three others.

As its illegal not to mention both Ronaldo and Messi when speaking about the Spanish league, it's worth having a quick look at their record in this list. Interestingly, both players have been part of a successful partnership as the second scorer - which is really what you'd have expected a few years back, with both players featuring out wide early on. Ronaldo's first season in Madrid saw him form one of the most balanced partnerships on this list, with Gonzalo Higuain. The Argentine banging in a decent 27 goals to the shy Portuguese's 26. A pretty good debut season before the championship manager stats started kicking in. Messi's season as the second scorer was in the 2008-09 season that saw Samuel Eto'o hitting 30 to Messi's 23.

Man City fans may be surprised to see Edin Dzeko in 6th place with the wall decorating Brazilian Grafite (I'm sorry) making up the pair - the highest Bundeliga entry with 54 goals. Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard have combined for 30+ goals on two occasions, with the 2009-10 season seeing a combined 51 league goals for the Chelsea legends - albeit not a typical strike partnership. However, in first place for England are Andy Cole and Peter Beardsley with a whopping 55 - all for a promoted club too. Impressive stuff. Must have been before Cole needed five chances to score (Glenn Hoddle's words, not mine).

Fans of 90s football will be disappointed not to see any Italian partnerships breaking the 50 goal mark but heartened to see the Original Ronaldo and (possibly the original) Luis Enrique with 51 goals in the 1996-97 season. Ronaldo who started the season aged just 19 would score 47 goals (all tournaments) in his only season with the Catalan giants. Damn you Gods of injury.

What is also interesting (depending on your definition), is that 11 of the 50 goal partnerships have been in the last five years - at a time when 4-5-1's have become the norm. Although a lot of them are rather dependent on Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo being involved.



The number one partnership sees Ronaldo paired up with Higuain for the 3rd time to make a 50 goal mark. The winning season being 2011-12 when Mourinho's men managed to break Barca's dominance of La Liga. A phenomenal 68 league goals from just two players is quite frankly bonkers.

Both Ronaldo and Messi feature in four 50 goal partnerships - Messi with 4 different partners, the big flirt.

Top 20 Partnerships By Country

I planned to show a top ten by country, but La Liga's are already on show, and it would also mean leaving out the likes of Batistuta and Oliveira who thrived on Rui Costa's assists in 1997-98. And because we haven't featured much from Serie A just yet, now seems as good a time as any. So without further ado:

Serie A Top Scoring Partnerships 1988-2013


Premier League/Division One Top Scoring Partnerships 1988-2013


La Liga Top Scoring Partnerships 1988-2013


Bundesliga Top Scoring Partnerships 1988-2013


I know what you're thinking - where's Vialli and Mancini? They were undoubtedly a great strike partnership, but they were also playing in the most defensive era of a league known for being defensive. They're best season together came in 1990-91 when they combined to score 31 league goals (ranked 35th in the Serie A charts).

It also turns out there was top flight football in England before the Premier League, I'm just as surprised as you. There's three entries from the old Division One, with Barnes and Rush scoring a decent 39 combined goals in the triumphant 1989-90 season for Liverpool, followed by Le Tissier and Wallace (Rod) for Southampton and Wright and Campbell for Arsenal.

Spain's list sees the crowd pleasing entry of Romario and Stoichkov, who notched 46 goals in 1993-94 whilst the Bundesliga entry reminds us of just how good Roy Makaay was. In fact the Dutchman is one of a number of players who feature across multiple leagues, with the likes of Ronaldo, Ronaldo (not a typo), Ibrahimovic, Eto'o, Raul and Berbatov (along with others).

Other Notes of Interest
Top 10 Teams are:

Real Madrid	19
Barcelona	17
Man Utd	13
Liverpool	10
Bayer Leverkusen	10
Arsenal	9
Bayern Munich	9
AC Milan	8
Valencia	7
Juventus	7

Most Featured Players:

Only 8 players have featured in five or more 30 goal partnerships and top spot doesn't go to Messi or Ronaldo, but rather Raul who has been involved in 10 great partnerships. Across two countries, he scored goals with Morientes, Zamorano, van Nistelrooy (2), Ronaldo (2), Guti, Huntelaar, Higuain, and Suker. That's impressive.

The other compatibles are Cristiano Ronaldo (7), Messi, Del Piero, Makaay, Eto'o, Berbatov, and Rooney (all five).

So there you have it, it's not just the big man-little man partnership (Quinn-Phillips), or the classic goalpoaching number 9 and playmaking number 10 (Romario and Stoichkov) that make great partnerships. It can be wide men with false number 9s, a lone striker with an advanced midfielder (Torres and Gerrard/Drogba and Lampard) or if you're lucky, it may even be Toni Polster and Bruno Labbadia (FC Koln 1994-95).

This season will see entries from Suarez and Sturridge, Ronaldo and Benzema, and Messi and Sanchez. Tevez and Llorente also stand a good chance of joining the elite club along with a few others.

I'll chuck the full list up in the coming days.

Cheers,

Liam

Player Comparison: Ferdinand & Vidic vs Bruce & Pallister

Next up in the Player Comparison series is a slightly different approach - it'll be a comparison of pairs, in this case the two great Manchester United Centre Back Partnerships of the last 25 years. With apologies to 1999's Stam and Johnsen, this is a look at which partnership has been best (statistically) between the 20th Century's Bruce and Pallister, and the 21st Century's Ferdinand and Vidic....

Background

Steve Bruce was the first to join the club in 1987 after captaining Norwich City to a 5th Place finish in the 1986-87 season. Just short of his 27th birthday, Bruce cost the Manchester Club £800k and made his debut in a 2-1 win over Portsmouth on December 19th. He's been described as the best player never to have been capped by England, joining the likes of Billy Bonds and Julian Dicks (what?).
Gary Pallister joined two seasons later for £2.3m which was then a national record for a defender. Like Bruce, he also helped his club to promotion, but as soon as Middlesbrough headed back down, it was just a matter of time before the England International moved on. Five years Bruce's junior, he signed for United at the age of 24. In the 1992-93 season, the two of them formed the solid foundations at the back that led the club to their first English Title since Matt Busby's team in 1967.

Fast forward to 2002 and it was Rio Ferdinand breaking transfer records as he became the most expensive British footballer of all time and the most expensive defender in the World, for just short of £30m as he left Leeds United. Aged just 21, he was joining the seven time Premier League Champions following an impressive World Cup.
And finally, Nemanja Vidic joined the Red Devils in the January 2006 transfer window for a bargain £7m from Spartak Moscow. Whilst he was joining the biggest team in the country, they had failed to win the title since 2003.

Rules

I'll only be looking at the games they played together as partnerships, to see which pair performed better. When looking at League Games, and in keeping with the theme of the site, I'll be ranking the opposition by Bottom 6, Middle 8, and Top 6 - to get an idea of how they performed in the big games. The workings are available in the Rules & Workings menu above.

As they're still playing and will make this post instantly out of date, Ferdinand and Vidic's records are only taken up to the end of 2012-13.

Results and Goals Conceded

And so onto the stats. Want to check a successful defence? Well surely goals conceded per game is the obvious place to start. As partnerships, in all competitions, Bruce and Pallister (Brullister? Pace? Neither?) played a whopping 317 games together, compared to Ferdinand and Vidic's (Ferdic? Vidinand? Okay, I'm sorry), surprisingly low 183. Considering they've been at the club together for close to eight years, that's quite a low number.

Both partnerships conceded less than a goal per game, with the newer partnership on top with just 0.72 goals conceded per game, to Bruce and Pallister's 0.89. It should be remembered however, that Ferdinand and Vidic only ever played in a title chasing or title winning team. Bruce and Pallister started playing together in 1988-89, finishing 13th, followed by an 11th placed league placing in the following year. The lowest Ferdinand and Vidic finished is 3rd.

Bruce and Pallister had a decent 57% win rate compared to Ferdinand and Vidic's 70%.

Clean Sheets

A straightforward victory for the more recent partnership, albeit with a caveat of the teams they came into. After goals conceded per game, clean sheets are perhaps the most telling statistic for a defence. And both pairs have a very impressive number - the older duo keeping over 100 together compared to Ferdinand and Vidic's 92 in all competitions.

Once again, when taking into account the number of games played, the current Man Utd partnership come out on top, with a clean sheet every 1.99 games in all competitions. It's easy to see why they've won so many league titles, and reached three Champions League Finals in four seasons.

You can point to the quality of the teams that they played in again, but to counter that, Bruce and Pallister had a shield of Ince and Keane in front of them for two full seasons (1993-95). Compare that to Michael Carrick since 2006 as the predominant holding midfielder, and the current pairing play in a more open team.

Big Games

As mentioned above, the idea behind the site is to pick out big game players - so how did the two pairs do when separating the better teams. There are notable games to pick out, such as the aforementioned Champions League Finals (no clean sheets for Vidic and Ferdinand), or the 1991 Cup Winners Cup victory against Barcelona (2-1), but it's difficult to quantify which games should be included, so with that in mind, I'll look at the league games. I've kept the Top 6/Middle 8/Bottom 6 split to check the range of opponent, but it's worth noting that Bruce and Pallister played in some league seasons containing more than 20 teams. Where that is the case, the Top 6 and Bottom 6 will remain, but the middle group will increase.

 

No surprises here, with a clear win in every field for Ferdinand and Vidic. They let in a miserly 0.7 goals per match in the Premier League, and in the big games, it's close to just one goal per game when they play together. That's not to say that Bruce and Pallister had a poor record, far from it. With only 0.87 goals conceded per game, it was one of the great defences - and it's worth noting that they played almost 100 more games together in the League.

Ferdinand and Vidic also kept clean sheets more often, with one every 1.97 games, and only 2.2 games against the Top 6 teams - compared to a clean sheet every 3.33 games against the Top 6 for Bruce and Pallister.

So once again, it's Ferdinand and Vidic on top.

What's that? What if I looked at the seasons that Bruce and Pallister were in title challenging teams? To level the playing fields you say? Well, if you insist - here's the same stats for the North East duo from 1992 to 1996 (three titles and one final day 2nd place):

Well well well. That certainly evens things up. Now, in almost an identical number of games, they're stats are pretty close - with only 0.78 goals conceded per game, and only 2.20 games per clean sheet. However, Ferdinand and Vidic still edge them out in the biggest games - the games that you need to win in order to win the league - against the Top 6 rivals. They've kept 5 more clean sheets than their predecessors - though Bruce and Pallister can point to a lower goals conceded number of 0.97 to 1.03.

It's still favouring Ferdinand and Vidic, but it's a lot closer.


Other big games? Well if I delve into the AverageOpposition.com mega mainframe then by choosing all Finals (excluding Charity/Community shields), Bruce and Pallister have clean sheets in two FA Cup Finals (Palace and Chelsea), the League Cup (Forest), and the Super Cup Final against Red Star Belgrade. Ferdinand and Vidic in response have two clean sheets in Finals - both League Cup (Wigan and Spurs). They each have individual clean sheets, but this is about partnerships - like Riggs and Murtagh, Laurel and Hardy or John and Edward.

Other

Not really a measure of defensive brilliance, but it's worth noting Bruce's value to the team with his whopping 51 goals - some vital in winning trophies (such as that Sheffield Wednesday brace). Pallister (15), Vidic (19) and Ferdinand (8), don't really come close in this regard. All of which helped Bruce in his "Cult Hero" with the fans. In fact, this is an area where Bruce and Pallister definitely have the upper hand, both having ended the long wait for the League Title for the Manchester Giants.

In terms of opposition, you could argue that the quality of forwards has changed, but it's hard to quantify. For every Klinsmann and 90's Alan Shearer for Bruce and Pallister to face, there's been an Henry or a van Persie for Ferdinand and Vidic.

Conclusion

Normally I find these things end in a draw, and whilst this one is very close, the stats favour Ferdinand and Vidic. Even when looking at the seasons when Bruce and Pallister were in a title challenging team, the stats still favour the latter partnership.

The Ferdinand-Vidic Partnership wouldn't have existed if it weren't for the success of Bruce and Pallister but they've built on that early Manchester United success to bring it to another level - most notably in Europe. It's also worth noting as mentioned above that the Bruce-Pallister partnership had a shield of Keane and Ince for two seasons.

I'm well aware that Stats aren't everything, and can indeed be used to prove most arguments, so make of them what you will!

Cheers,

Liam

The Bale Effect - One Man Team?

There's been plenty written about Gareth Bale of late, and rightly so - he's currently the form player in the Premier League and his goals have been worth 17 points for Spurs this season. But what about the rest of the teams? And what happens when you take each of the main points winners out of each team?

It's been mentioned a lot that if you took Gareth Bale's goals away from Spurs, they'd be 17 points worse off and down to 37 points. That would leave them in 10th Position, and closer to the relegation zone than the Champions League places. Sound logic? No, not really - the only fare comparison would be if you levelled the playing field and took every team's top points scorer out to see what happens.

First and Foremost, the calculations: Using Gareth Bale (why not) as an example:

West Ham 2     Carroll, Cole
Spurs         3     Bale 2, Sigurdsson

Remove Bale's goals and it becomes West Ham 2-1 Spurs. This means they're down 3 points. Simple enough. If you were to remove one goal from a 1-0 win, then they lose 2 points as they would have still won a point for a draw. It's not an exact science as you don't play with 10 men and someone would replace them, but it's a good guide.

So on that basis, I've taken the top points scorers based on goals for each team in the Premier League and measured their impact on the team's position if all of them were removed:

Well that settles it! Whilst Bale is the difference between Spurs being in the magical top 4 positions or not, then he has been the difference. If for example you took him and Santi Cazorla out of their respected clubs then it's Spurs that would feel the pinch more than their North London rivals, who would actually go up a position. What does this mean? Well the teams that have risen up the table can point to less reliance on one particular player. Those in red that have fallen, are too reliant on just one star player.

Man Utd's Robin van Persie may be the highest points scorer, but United would still be top if his goals were removed. In fact, the two teams most reliant on their top points scorer in this measure are Sunderland (Fletcher) and Fulham (Berbatov). Both would fall three positions.

What else?

Well going back to that West Ham vs Spurs game, and at 2-1 to West Ham, Joe Cole played Matt Taylor clean through for a one on one opportunity against Hugo Lloris. The keeper was off his line in a split second and pulled off a great save. At 3-1 with 20 minutes left, it's unlikely Spurs would have won, regardless of Bale's second goal. This measure doesn't track the impact of these incidents, so is admittedly slightly flawed, but that hasn't stopped people from doing it anyway!

Kevin Keegan - A Case for the Defence?

Throughout his managerial career, Kevin Keegan was widely regarded to be a passionate, great man manager, and motivator but never good defensively. The lasting opinion of Keegan's teams is that they'd try and outscore the opposition, without much regard for defending. I thought I'd review that and see if King Kev has been a bit hard done by......

I'd love it if people took my defensive record seriously.....love it!

A slightly different feature this time, in the sense that it's not about a Big Game Player or Flat Track Bully, but instead looking to try and prove or disprove one of football's longstanding assumptions - much like Maradona being a one man team. This time it's the turn of everyone's favourite Geordie Kevin Keegan and his defensive skills.

From his appointment as Newcastle United Manager in February 1992, Keegan has overseen over 500 club games, winning over half of them. A great record, especially when looking a bit deeper. Most will point to the 12 point lead that he lost with Newcastle in the 95-96 season but that would be doing the man a disservice. Promotions with three different teams from the old First Division (twice) and Division Two, as well as finshing 3rd in the Premier League with a promoted team before pushing Man Utd to the last day of the season in 1995-96. In fact, his perfUormance as a manager is severely under rated, and more eloquently highlighted here. So surely with three promotions and several Premier League top half finishes, his defensive record can't be that bad?

Stats

So without further ado, a look at the statistics. The best way to measure defensive capability is surely clean sheets and goals conceded, so with that in mind, below are the relevant statistics for Keegan's teams in League Competition.

An overall record of a clean sheet every three league games certainly points to a good defensive performance. When you take into account that the 1991-92 season was with a team fighting relegation to the third tier of English football, and that the 1993-94 and 2002-03 seasons were as a promoted team in the Premier League, then the record is even more impressive. Unsurprisingly, the promtion campaigns saw the highest number of clean sheets with 18, 24 and 16 for Newcastle, Fulham and Man City respectively, but there were also double figures in four full Premier League seasons.

The 1995-96 season was his closest to winning the Premier League title, and was also his best defensively, with 13 clean sheets in 38 games. When looking at this season's Premier League, only Liverpool and Man City are on track to beat that. Current run away league leaders Man Utd are on course to finish with 10 clean sheets this league season (7 after 26 games).

It's a similar story with the goals conceded. Of course with Fulham in Division Two he had his best record with 0.7 goals conceded per game. It should be pointed out that he had a bigger budget than most of the other clubs in the Division, but that's not always enough. Looking at his time with Newcastle, he had an overall recored of conceding 1.07 goals per game over 224 matches. A phenomenal record which gets even better if you look just at his first Premier League spell with Newcastle - 147 goals conceded in 143 games (1.03 goals per game). Looking at the all time Premier League Table, only 4 teams can better that - Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool.



Peer Comparison

So we've seen that Keegan's best Premier League season would be the third best in terms of Clean Sheets in this season's competition, and the goals conceded rate of 0.97 per game would be the second best based on current defensive stats at the moment. So how does he compare to his peers?

Well the first thing is to identify relevant Managers. The main one that jumps out is Harry Redknapp - another English manager that's managed in the lower leagues like Keegan, has won promotion to the Premier League and who also has several top 5 finishes in common with him.

Redknapp has more clean sheets than Keegan with 202, but that was achieved over 677 league games, compared to Keegan's 141 in 421. Redknapp's rate of a clean sheet every 3.35 games is poorer than Keegan's and in fact, when looking at Redknapp's overall defensive record, he trails Keegan in each one - conceding on average 1.26 goals per game (to Keegan's 1.10). Keegan has a superior record in the Football League as well as the Premier League. Harry's most successful time was with Spurs where he kept a clean sheet every 3.06 games, and conceded an average of 1.12 per game - inferior to Keegan's time at Newcastle. A clear win for Keegan here.

Who else? Other managers that were around in Keegan's time include Dalglish, Souness, and Allardyce - all British managers, and all Newcastle manager at some point, but all without the tag of being defensively weak. Dalglish had a record of 0.93 goals conceded per game in Blackburn's title winning season, compared to 1.05 at Liverpool last season - more than Keegan's Premier record with Newcastle. Dalglish's one full season with Newcastle saw an average of 1.16 conceded per game. Souness conceded 1.35 goals per game at Newcastle whilst Sam Allardyce's short reign saw them conceded 1.57 goals per game - although his best season at Bolton saw just 1.08 conceded per game in 2005/06 as he led Bolton to 8th.

Improvement

One last quick measure would be to look at his impact on each team he's taken over, compared to his predecessor. Now it should be pointed out that if a new manager has been appointed, it's likely that the old manager wasn't doing particularly well, so I'll look at the successor's record as well.

The only manager that has a better record was Stuart Pearce who took over for the last nine games of the 2004-05 season. Pearce followed that up with 1.26 conceded per game in his first full season. The Fulham stat is a little harsh on Paul Bracewell as Keegan had just got them promoted to Division One. I haven't included the last spell at Newcastle, but that ended in relegation, so it's fair to say they were better defensively under Keegan.

Conclusion

A clean sheet total of 141 and a record of one every three games would suggest that Keegan was not the defensively naive manager he's made out to be. Conceding less than a goal a game in four different seasons would also back this up. He compares favourably to his peers, and defensively, he improved every team he managed. There's no real debate - Keegan's defensive record is very good, it's just the perception of it that's poor.

Top 50 Big Game Scorers - Some Findings

Based on the large amount of feedback from the Guardian Football link to the Top 50 Big Game Scorers piece, I thought I'd add a bit more detail to answer some of the questions raised in the comments:

In terms of rankings, I've added an interactive table at the bottom of the post including the Top 200 - so filter on whatever you think is relevant for what you want to find out - whether that be club goals only, or just English Players, or even the decades - the tool can give a bit more detail.

Where's Maradona? (and others)

Maradona doesn't feature in the Top 50 Big Game Scorers list due to not scoring in the biggest games as regularly as others. That's not to say he's not one of the greatest players of all time, because only a fool would argue that. I'm just saying that based on major Global, European and South American Tournaments, Maradona scored just three goals in the Semi Final or Final stages - pretty low for the man many consider to be the greatest of all time. Given his club and national team goal scoring record, it's quite surprising - he has 311 in 589 club games and 34 in 91 for his country. That's a prolific strike rate for anyone - so for a man considered greatest of all time, and who has played in four World Cups, and Three Copa Americas, you'd expect more than just two Semi Final goals (in the same match 1986).

That's two World Cup Finals (1986 & 1990), a Semi Final (1990), and a Copa America Semi (1987) - without him scoring. In fact, he didn't score once in the 1990 World Cup. It's obvious that he was more than just goals - his assists tell you that, but for a prolific scorer, his strike rate wasn't carried into the biggest games. His other big game goal was a penalty in the UEFA Cup Final of 1989.

Andres Iniesta - 3 goals/9 points - World Cup Final (2012), Champions League Semi Final (2009 & 2012)

Didier Drogba - 4 goals/9 points - Champions League Final (2012), Champions League Semi Final (2 x 2008, 2012)

Andriy Shevchenko - 4 goals/8 points - Champions League Semi Final (2 x 1999, 2003, 2005)

Steven Gerrard - 2 goals/5 points - Champions League Final (2005), UEFA Cup Final (2001)

Frank Lampard - 3 goals/7 points - Champions League Final (2008), Champions League Semi Final (2004, 2008)

Rivaldo - 3 goals/11 points - Copa America Final (1999), Copa America Semi Final (2 x 1999)

Carlos Tevez - 6 goals/11.5 points - Copa Libertadores Final (2003) Copa Libertadores Semi Final  (3 x 2003, 2 x 2004)

Lothar Matthaus - 5 goals/11 points - UEFA Cup Final (1980, 1981), European Cup Semi Final (2 x 1987, 1989)

Luis Suarez - 3 goals/11 points - Copa America Final (2011), Copa America Semi Final (2 x 2011)

Lineker and Klose have just one entry each - World Cup Semi Final in 1990 and Euro 2008 Semi Final respectively.

Steven Gerrard for example, is known for stepping up at important times, but the 2006 FA Cup Final goal for example is a domestic cup and although very prestigious, not included in the biggest games in World Football. Similarly, the goal in the Champions League to get Liverpool to the next round against Olympiakos, was a group game match. Similarly, a hat trick in the Merseyside Derby is undoubtedly showing a big game temperament, but this list is for the very biggest games in World Football.

I can confirm that Roger Milla did not feature.

Appearances and Assists

Some interesting points were made on the opportunities that the players had. In this choice of games, George Best for example only had the one game that he could have scored in - the 1968 European Cup Final, in which he showed his Big Game pedigree by scoring 2 goals. Alternatively, Thierry Henry has played in the following Finals without scoring: World Cup 2006, Euro 2000, UEFA Cup 2000, Champions League 2006, 2009. Also the Semi Final stages of all of the above only brought one goal - in the UEFA Cup Semi Final against Lens.A footballing great without doubt, but not on the biggest stages.

So on that front, the opportunities to join the list are worth noting, but unfortunately the line up data for all of the tournaments going back to 1950 aren't available, so had to be omitted.

And the same can be said of assists. Although I mention Maradona's lack of goals in the World Cup Finals, he did create the winning goal for Burruchaga in 1986 with a sensational pass that split the West Germany defence and left the striker clean through. However, the assist information is not widely available for all of the big games from 1950, so unfortunately they had to be left out. That's why the article was specifically called Big Game Scorer rather than Player.

Weighting of Goals

Also another valid point is the weighting of goals. Should Fernando Torres' two European Championship Final goals be worth the same weight? The 2008 goal was the winning goal in a 1-0 win, compared to the 2012 goal which was the third in a 4-0 win. However, given the scale of the project, this just wasn't possible. Plus there's the further issue of weighting, when the games themselves have already been weighted.

Top 200 (and 10)

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Player Comparison: Wayne Rooney vs Michael Owen for England

Next up in the Player Comparison series is a quick look at the goalscoring performances for the national team, of the 4th and 5th most prolific England strikers of all time, current England Star Wayne Rooney, and former England striker Michael Owen. Who has performed better for the National Team, and who's been the better performer in the big games? Read on to find out.

In February 1998, Michael Owen made his international debut, becoming the youngest England player of the 20th century, aged just 18 years old and 59 days. Fast forward 5 years to February 2003, and Wayne Rooney was starting out even younger at 17 years and 111 days. Both tasted defeat in the friendlies versus Chile and Australia respectively, but both would go on to enter the Top 5 goal scorers in England History.

"At least I'm taller than you"

Rules:

For this comparison, it'll strictly be International goals. I'll look at Competitive vs Friendly, with a look at knockout stages as a gauge for the Biggest Games. In terms of the usual Average Opposition treatment, the average rank of the opponent per goal will be based on the official FIFA World Rankings (I know they're sometimes flawed, but offer a decent guide). As well as that, there's also the ranges as so:

Top 10
11-25
26-50
51-100
100+

This comparison is strictly on goals. I know that takes away assists which is more likely to affect "Wazza" but seeing as they're both in the Top 5 for England Goals, I thought it worthwhile. The records are accurate as at January 2013. Rooney's likely to score more, Owen less so.

The Numbers:

First and foremost a simple look at the goals per games for each player. The bread and butter measurement that all strikers are judged on - all aiming for the magical one in two strike rate. Michael Owen has 40 goals from 89 caps - at a rate of a goal every 2.23 games. For International strikers, that's pretty impressive. Rooney on ther other hand has 32 goals in 78 appearances - a rate of 2.44. Not much in it, but first blood to Owen. Out of interest, here's how they compare to selected others, firstly England's finest:

And just out of (nerdy) interest, a look at a few of their peers since Owen's debut in 1998 (click image to enlarge):

 

In terms of goal scoring, Owen's decent 40 goals puts him around halfway up the list of illustrious strikers, with Rooney's 32 closer to the lower end. In terms of goals per games though, neither really stand out compared to the biggest names - Batistuta, Suker, Drogba, Ronaldo and Villa. Tevez and Anelka, Premier League peers, even less so.

So far, not much in it. So how about the famous Average Opposition and Range Comparison?

Once again, a win for Owen. He's scored more goals than Rooney in each of the first three Ranges - with almost double the amount of goals against the Top 10 teams in World football (at the time of the game), and in fact shows great consistency regardless of the opponent. Rooney on the other hand, has the air of a Flat Track Bully, with 20 of his 32 goals being scored against teams ranked over 50th in the World.

 

The average opposition per goal for each player reflects this - with Owen having a decent 48.23 compared to Rooney's 73.63. So does this prove that Owen is the bigger game player than Rooney? It certainly goes some way. Though this doesn't allow for the type of game.
When you take into account the Competitive and Friendlies split, it's actually a nod to Rooney. His 32 goals are split as 24 in Competitive games and just 8 in Friendlies (75/25 split) compared to Owen's 26 Competitive and 14 Friendly goals (65/35 split).

Competitive Goals:

So from the above, Rooney has the higher percentage of Competitive goals, but in terms of number, they're very similar at 24 and 26. This is the big game player category. Splitting Competitive games into Qualifying and Tournaments, gives an even better indication of Big Game Players. In this instance, Rooney scored 19 qualifying goals to Owen's 20, meaning Owen has 6 tournament goals to Rooney's 5. Once again, pretty close.

However, dig a bit deeper and there is only one winner.

Whilst Rooney was undoubtedly England's best Player in Euro 2004 when as a teenager he scored 4 goals in the group stages before getting injured early on against Portugal in the second round, his first tournament was the exception rather than the rule. Since then, no goals in World Cup 2006 were followed by no goals in World Cup 2010, and most recently one group goal in Euro 2012 - from two yards out. Against a Ukraine team ranked 52nd in the world.

Owen on the other hand has never scored more than two goals at a tournament, but has scored in four out of the five he's played in - two in World Cup 98, two in World Cup 2002 and a goal in each of Euro 2000 and 2004. Though that only tells half the story - only two of those goals were in group games, and Owen has the impressive record of scoring in every knock out game that he's played for England - that's four different occasions including two Quarter Final Goals. And looking at the opposition, Owen clearly has the big game mentality, with Argentina, Brazil and Portugal added to a goal against Denmark:

So simply put, if you were a betting man (like the players in question) Owen was the man you'd want for the big occasion - something that he's proven throughout his club career with a double in the FA Cup Final, as well as goals in the League Cup and UEFA Cup finals - not to mention the hat-trick away to Germany in World Cup qualifying back in 2001. That's not to say Rooney is without goals on the big stage as the Champions League Final goal against Barcelona showed. Unfortunately it's not been replicated in the white of England.

Conclusion:

There's not much in it when looking at the overall records - Owen has a slightly better strike rate but not significantly. In terms of the overall split between friendly and competitive, once again, it's similar, this time in Rooney's favour. The real difference is the Tournament Football.

After Rooney scored a brace against Switzerland and Croatia, the team lost it's momentum when he went off injured after just 27 minutes against Portugal in the Quarter Finals. It's hard to predict how the result would have been affected by an in form Rooney playing the whole game. If he'd carried on scoring, who knows what England would have achieved. At the time it was thought that it was going to be the start of a glittering International Career - unfortunately, a mixture of form, temper and injuries has meant the Rooney is still waiting to match that first explosive tournament. At just 27 at the time of writing, Rooney should still go on to reach Owen's 40 goal mark, and perhaps even beating Bobby Charlton's 49 goals for the National Team, but to some it still feels like a career that's failed to reach the massive potential shown nine years ago.

Similarly, Owen also excelled in his first International Tournament, scoring the goal of the tournament against bitter rivals Argentina. Unlike Rooney though, he continued to show a level of self control, and form and indeed calmness in front of goal that saw him score in four different tournaments, and most impressively, every knock out game he's played. As a warning to Rooney, Owen also looked odds on to beat Charlton's record but the injury in the 2006 group stages saw the start of the decline in his International career - staggeringly, he was just 25 when he went off against Sweden. Owen had scored his 40th goal by the time he was 26. He's scored none since. So it's also a case of what could have been for Owen to an extent - some poor career choices and unfortunate injuries saw him fall out of favour under both MacClaren and Capello.

At 27, Rooney still has the chance to make the grade with potentially three more tournaments by 32. Owen at 33 and without regular club football does not.

The Full Interactive Stats:

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What happened to the great English Striker?

With twenty seasons of the Premier League completed at the end of the 2011-12 season, I had a look at the best goalscoring partnerships (click here), and one thing that jumped out was the quality of English Striker in the first ten years, compared to the last ten. So with that in mind, I thought I'd highlight the trend...

Wayne Rooney is currently considered the only world class English striker and after his showing in Euro 2012 (and World Cup 2010 for that matter), even question marks have been raised over him. Runner up for the Premier League Golden Boot in both the 2009-10 and 2011-12 seasons, he's undoubtedly about more than just goals - but he's the closest English winner for the Golden Boot the league has seen since Kevin Phillips 30 goal haul in 1999-2000. That's twelve seasons without an Englishman top scoring in the English top division.

Now this isn't a dig a Rooney - far from it, he's doing his best to live up to the fine goalscoring tradition of his fellow country men, and but for injury at the end of the 2009-10 season, he surely would have gone on to win the title that Drogba won. It's just that he's England's best forward, and he's not even the best striker at his club anymore - playing second fiddle to the man that beat him in the scoring charts last season, Robin van Persie. So when did it all go wrong for the English forward, and why?

Rules

I've gone through the Top Scorers lists from the first Premier League season in 1992-93 (Englishman Brian Deane scoring the first goal) to the 2011-12 season - a nice neat 20 seasons, complete with a handy 10 year split. To keep things equal, I've only considered Premier League Goals, and although there were 42 game seasons until 1995-96, I've left them in as it was the same number of games regardless of the nationality of the players.
In terms of threshold, it's the Top 10 ranked goal scorers for each season. In several occasions that was more than ten players as there were several tied on the same amout of goals.

First Ten Years

You almost get nostalgic looking back. Shearer, Sheringham, Wright, Fowler, Collymore, Andy Cole, Les Ferdinand. All top class forwards. Even Michael Owen scored over half of his goals in the first ten years of the Premier League. Then you had good players like Chris Sutton, Dion Dublin, Tony Cottee, Kevin Phillips and Kevin Campbell - good players and prolific in spells.

So 21 different nationalities were represented in the first ten years of Premier League Top Scorers. No real surprise to see that English players were in the Top 10 scorers on 66 occasions out of a possible 106 - with the closest nationalities being Holland and France with 7 entries each. The players involved? Cantona, Anelka and Henry for France and Bergkamp, Hasselbaink and van Nistelrooy for the Dutch, all legends of the Premier League, and all top class talents.

The Americas are represented by just four entries - Juninho, Hamilton Ricard, Paulo Wanchope and midfield Gus Poyet. Somewhat surprisingly, there's only one entry from African players - with France born and bred Freddie Kanoute hitting 11 goals in 2000-01 (10th). The only other entries from outside of Europe were Australia's Mark Viduka, whose 17 goals in the same season, saw him finish in 4th place for the Golden Boot, and Trinidad and Tobago's Dwight Yorke who made the Top 10 on four occasions.

Elsewhere, there's another surprise when looking at the Ireland (Quinn), Scotland (Gallacher) and Wales (Hughes, Saunders, Hartson), who had a combined five entries. Perhaps the rot for Scottish football in particular has set in earlier than some thought, but that's for another discussion.

What of the English players? Well seven of the ten seasons saw an English winner - the first six seasons, followed by Kevin Phillips debut Premier League season in 1999-00. Shearer (three occasions), Andy Cole and Phillips all made or bettered the 30 goal mark, whilst Fowler (twice), Ferdinand and Sutton all scored 25 goals or more in a season. In total, the first ten years of the Premier League saw English players score 20 goals or more on 21 occasions.

Second Ten Years

The standout stat and the the centrepiece of this article is the drop in English goalscorers - there's been a reduction of 50% in the Top 10 ranked scorers list. Whilst the likes of Shearer, Ferdinand, Sheringham and Cole were all still playing into the second decade of the Premier League, they were all on the way down and nearing the end of their careers. Owen and Fowler were still in their twenties but couldn't match the form they'd shown earlier in their careers - both saw a significant drop in their strike rates after leaving Liverpool.

 

There were still good performances, of the 33 entries in to the Top Scorers from the English players, there were seven 20+ goal seasons - twice from Rooney, and one each from Shearer, Andy Johnson, Darren Bent and James Beattie. Making up the list is midfielder Frank Lampard. The interesting thing there is that the entries from Johnson, Bent and Beattie were exceptions rather than rules. Take Andy Johnson for example - aside from his debut 21 goal Premier League season, his other tallies were 11, 6, 7, 3, and 3. Hardly prolific. Similarly, James Beattie's 23 goals in the 2002-03 season were followed by 14, 3, 1, 10, 2, 7 and 2.

Jermaine Defoe makes it into the Top 10 scorers list on just two occasions. He looks odds on to do so again this season, but it's quite a surprising stat from one of the better English Strikers in the second decade of the Premier League - especially for one known as a poacher.

Scotland fall out of the equation all together, whilst Wales are restricted to just one entry - Craig Bellamy's 13 goals in 2005-06. Ireland fare a little better, largely thanks to Robbie Keane and one good season from Kevin Doyle. When comparing to the first decade, the influence from both inside and outside of Europe has grown in almost all cases.

The Americas are now represented nine times, Africa on 18 occasions and Australia up to three. New entries include Argentina, Spain and Portugal, whilst France and Holland remain the highest non British/Irish countries - with France up to 13 and Holland up to 10. In total, there were 26 nationalities represented in the Top 10 scorers lists from 2003-12

What has happened to the great English Striker?

Number of Foreign Players

Obvious as it may be, the first and foremost reason and shown clearly above, is the number of foreign players is the largest factor.

However, for every Henry, van Nistelrooy and van Persie, there's a Manucho, Boselli and Fuertes. In fact there's been several highly rated prolific scorers arriving in the Premier League with high hopes and expectations, but a relatively small fee. And that's the key point - the price. The market for English players is bloated beyond belief. It's easy to raise the example of Andy Carroll - £35m for half a good season in the Premier League. Michu costs £2m. Not really much to think about there.

For all the sub standard players like those mentioned above, and the likes of Sava, Aloisi, and Mpenza, a home grown player is seeing their progress blocked. Last season saw Grant Holt score 15 Premier League goals - because he was given a chance. Danny Graham managed a decent 12 - just outside the Top 10. This season, Rickie Lambert is doing his best to follow in their footsteps. All English strikers who have scored goals in the top flight after spending most of their careers to date in the lower leagues. Add in Kevin Phillips, Dean Ashton and Marcus Stewart, and there's a case to be made for giving more players from lower leagues a chance.

Why were they in the lower leagues in the first place? Well the influx of foreign players - both talented and not so, squeezes out English players. Looking at Jermaine Defoe again, he was sold from Tottenham the first time around as he was deemed surplus to requirements - Giovanni Dos Santos was one of the replacement forwards signed. Peter Crouch was also shown the door at Aston Villa, Liverpool and later Spurs. Players kept in his position include Marcus Allback, Andriy Voronin, Nabir El Zhar, and an ageing Louis Saha. It's a similar story for several English Strikers.

Another element of the foreign influx is the standard of defender that's been brought in - Stam, Desailly, Bilic, Vidic et al, have all made life tougher for the forwards to score.
To be clear, I'm not against Foreign Players, but wouldn't it be better if only those more talented than English players were brought in? Unfortunately, due to the transfer fees involved when buying British, clubs will continue to look abroad. This isn't restricted just to the second decade (Boogers, Silenzi etc..) but the frequency has certainly increased.

Formations

Another large factor is that of formation. Looking back at the successful Premier League teams of recent years, and how many have actually played two up front? The death of the strike duo originated in Ferguson's quest to conquer Europe. The signing of Juan Sebastien Veron saw a move to a 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 formation, as he looked to sure up the midfield. That led to van Nistelrooy largely leading the line as the focal point, with runners from midfield working off him.

And the next major change was with Jose Mourinho's introduction to Chelsea. The 2002-03 season saw a great partnership of Hasselbaink and Gudjohnsen - with Zola coming in regularly. The season after, it was Hasselbaink and Mutu. Under Mourinho, Chelsea moved to a 4-3-3 - with Drogba the lone striker, supported by two wide players - initially Robben and Duff, and later Joe Cole. That formation has remained in place up to the present day - the Champions League Final saw a £50m striker left on the bench as there was only one starting striking role and Drogba was ahead in form. That 4-3-3 also found it's way to Man Utd (Tevez/Ronaldo/Rooney), Arsenal, Spurs and just about all of the top clubs. This season, Liverpool are also playing it, as are City (at times).

So what impact has this had to English Strikers? Well a few. The football upbringing of the average English striker is in a 4-4-2 formation for a start. As a result, they're often lacking experience in leading the line alone. It's also led to many players pushed out wide. In the 2008 title winning season, many will recall Wayne Rooney stuck out on the left wing - resulting in just 12 league goals that season. Similarly, the likes of Daniel Sturridge and Theo Walcott have seen their opportunities in a central role restricted. Sturridge has had to move to Liverpool in an attempt to play through the middle, whilst at the time of writing, it appears to be te sticking point for Walcott signing a new contract at Arsenal. A return to the 4-4-2 of old would see more opportunities for these type of players.

Goal Scoring Midfielders

Tied in with the change in formation, has seen one change in the scoring habits. That of the scoring midfielder. Looking at the Top 10 scorers by season in the first decade of the Premier League, there were seven entries from midfield (four of them were from Matt Le Tissier). Fast forward to the second decade and that increases to 17. Pires, Scholes, Lampard, Gerrard, Dempsey and others have all made the Top 10 goal scorers. This season has seen Wales winger, Gareth Bale do the same.

So whilst the goals are drying up for English strikers (and indeed all strikers), the frequency of the midfielders in the Top 10 scorers list has significantly increased.

The Future

Whilst the change in formation and the price of English footballers remain as they are, it's unlikely that we'll see a return to prominence of the great English goalscorer. There are promising young talents such as Sturridge and Welbeck, but there's far too few of them to suggest a recovery. A quick look at the first choice forwards of each team tells a story.

The dip in quality is best highlighted when looking at the England Squads for major tournaments. Euro 96 saw Shearer (31 goals), Sheringham (16), Fowler (28) and Ferdinand (25). Jump forward to Euro 2012 and Rooney (27), Carroll (4), Welbeck (9) and Defoe (11) were the forward options available to Roy Hodgson. In 1996, Ian Wright and Andy Cole didn't make the squad - both prolific strikers.

100 Goal Club

Just for your viewing pleasure, to finish off, a list of all the players with 100 Premier League goals. Just four of the English strikers in the list are currently active in the Premier League, with midfielders Scholes and Lampard coming to the end of their Premier League careers:

Player Comparison: Rio Ferdinand vs John Terry

Up next in the World Famous Player Comparison series is a slightly controversial one. England defenders and definitely not best friends, Rio Ferdinand and John Terry. Two of the best defenders in Premier League history, this is the first comparison of defenders, and could be the last depending on feedback….

Given the recent disharmony between Terry and the Ferdinands, this may seem a bit on the reactive side, but I’ve had this request on more than one occasion (twice) so thought I’d give it a go. Both are entering the twilight of their careers (Rio has just turned is 34, JT, approaching 32), both have been League winners and Champions League winners. Both have played at one of the biggest clubs in the world for 10 years or more, and for a long time, the two were playing alongside eachother at the heart of the England defence. With that in mind, and the added spice of club and personality clashes/rivalries, they’re ideal candidates to compare.

The Rules

Usually I’m comparing goals and assists, but in this instance the focus is all about the dirty business of stopping them. So when looking at the range and average opponent, it’ll be by goals conceded and clean sheets. The primary focus will be on Premier League stats, but there will be a look at international and cup games. The calculations can be found in the rules and workings page on the top menu, but simply enough, it’s a look at their stats but by the level of opposition.

The time period is from when Ferdinand signed for Manchester United at the start of the 2002-03 season, up until the end of 2011-12 – 10 full seasons. In that time, Terry has played 311 Premier League games to Ferdinand’s 269.

Background

Despite being born and bred in South London, Rio Ferdinand began his Football career in the prestigious West Ham academy. Initially a central midfielder, Rio was taught the art of defending under the tutelage of Tony Carr, and was hailed as the heir to Bobby Moore’s throne for club and country. With his ability on the ball, Ferdinand also played for the West Ham first team in central midfield, wing back and even up front – scoring his first senior goal in just his second substitute appearance, after his debut aged just 17. Seen as talented but unfocused, eyebrows were raised when Leeds United paid £18m for the young defender in November 2000 – both a British Record transfer and also the World Record price for a defender. But Ferdinand excelled under fellow Centre Back David O’Leary and helped a young Leeds team to the Semi Final of the Champions League later that season. Another good season later, and Ferdinand was starting for England in the 2002 World Cup, as they got to the Quarter Finals. His displays for both Leeds and England were enough for Sir Alex Ferguson to pay over £30m – making him once again the most expensive British footballer, and regaining the title of World’s most expensive defender from Lilian Thuram.

John Terry on the other hand, has been a one club man. Despite also training with West Ham as a youngster, the Barking born defender signed for Chelsea at the age of 14 after playing for famous boys club Senrab, along with the likes of Bobby Zamora, Ledley King and JLloyd Samuel. During his early years around the Chelsea first team squad, he saw his chances limited due to Marcel Desailly and Frank Le Boeuf, and subsequently found himself at Nottingham Forest on a short term loan to get first team experience under David Platt. Despite making his Chelsea debut in the 1998-99 season, Terry didn’t become a first team regular until the 2000-01 season, playing 22 league games as Chelsea finished in 6th place. The following season, Terry further cemented his place as a first team regular, playing in 33 of the 38 league games, as Chelsea once again finished in 6th place. Seen as a typical British defender, Terry made a reputation for putting his body on the line for the cause, but it his ability to pass the ball was often overlooked as a result.

Premier League

Clean Sheets

And so on to the hard numbers. First and foremost, the appearances and clean sheets by season:

Both have pretty good records with close to a one in two clean sheet rate. Ferdinand’s appearances have been slightly limited due to injury and an eight month ban for forgetfulness. Over the ten years, Ferdinand has made an average of 27 league appearances per season, and in that time, has kept an average of 12.9 clean sheets per season. In total, he’s kept a clean sheet for every 2.085 games. John Terry’s 311 appearances work out at an average of 31 games per season, with a clean sheet rate of 15.9. So on the face of it, Terry is ahead, with a clean sheet every 1.955 games.

Terry’s high of 25 in Chelsea’s title winning season of 2004-05 dwarfs Ferdinand’s 19 in 2007-08, when United won the total. In fact, Terry has kept 20 clean sheets or more in three of the ten seasons. Surprisingly, neither player has completed a full 38 game season.

So Terry’s ahead on the overall defensive stats, but in reality, both keep a clean sheet every second game – a phenomenal rate over a ten year period. But what of their quality of the opposition? Step this way.

First up (due to age and alphabet) is Ferdinand. A decent 27 clean sheets against the teams that finished in the Top 6, 65 against the Mid table teams and 37 against the teams struggling against relegation. An average ranked opponent of 11.21 over 129 clean sheets, his highest number of clean sheets against the big teams was five, which was achieved in three consecutive seasons between 2005-06 to 2007-08, with Man Utd winning the league in the latter two seasons. His highest average was in 2010-11, with 7.50 average from his eight clean sheets – of which, half were against the Top 6 teams, with Spurs (twice), Arsenal and Man City all being kept out. Tellingly, no clean sheets were kept against the Top 6 in the 2011-12 season as United lost the title on goal difference, with Ferdinand being part of the United team that lost 6-1 at home to Manchester City.

Terry’s best season was by far and away the 2004-05 season. Keeping a whopping 25 clean sheets against an average ranked opponent of 10.12 as Chelsea went on to win the league for the first time in 50 years, breaking, posting the best defensive record in the history of the English top flight. The season after also saw a stellar defensive display from Chelsea, and Terry was partly responsible for 20 clean sheets, including five against the Top 6 teams. Last season however, saw a drop in the number of clean sheets as he posted just 9 during his 31 league appearances. This could be down to a number of things, such as off the field problems, or defensive partners. Long gone are the days of Carvalho, who has been replaced by Luiz and Cahill. As a result, the number of clean sheets have dropped significantly.

So John Terry is more likely to play first and foremost, and he’s just ahead of Rio Ferdinand in terms of games per clean sheet. But……

If we take a closer look at Clean Sheets against the Top 6, taking into account Ferdinand’s appearances. Each player has finished in the Top 6 in each of the ten seasons, meaning there’s a maximum of ten appearances against Top 6 opposition. So here’s the clean sheets and appearances by player versus the best in the league:

John Terry’s clean sheet rate of one every 1.955 games becomes a clean sheet every 2.61 games, compared to Ferdinand’s clean sheet every 2.44 games. So Terry’s more likely to keep clean sheets overall, but Ferdinand did it more against the best in the league. In United’s last title winning season, he kept an impressive four in just six appearances.

Goals Conceded

Moving on to goals conceded. First up is Ferdinand again. Over the 269 Premier League games for United in the last 10 years, he’s let in on average 0.75 goals per game – comfortably under the magical 1 per game target. His best season, being the 2007-08 title win, where he let in only 21 goals in 35 games – 0.6 goals per game. The season before, he played 8 games versus the Top 6 teams, and only conceded 4 goals, whilst in 2010-11, the other Top teams only managed to score twice during his 6 games against. In total, he conceded 70 goals in 66 apearances against the best teams in the league – a number damaged by the 6-1 Manchester Derby.

Moving on to Chelsea’s Captain, on the same comparison, Terry conceded 83 goals in 81 appearances against fellow Top 6 teams – just ahead of Ferdinand’s rate. His best season against the Top 6 was in 2004-05 when just four strikes got past him and his team mates in 9 appearances. His overall goals conceded rate is 0.72 per game – almost identical to his rival’s 0.75. His best season was the phenomenal 2004-05 when just 13 goals were conceded on Terry’s watch – a phenomenal 0.36 goals per game. No wonder they won the league so comfortably.

Discipline

This isn’t taking into account the many off the field issues affecting each player, but a very quick look at the yellow/red card count in their last ten years. It’s fair to say that the records are like Chalk and Cheese in this regard. In just the Premier League games, they’ve shared 5 Red Cards – 4 of which were for Terry. Reds against Spurs (twice), Everton and Man City have cost his team as they managed just one win in the four games. Ferdinand’s one red was in the 4-3 defeat to Blackburn, that saw young up and coming midfielder David Bentley score a hat trick against United. A platform for great things…..

On the yellow cards, it’s pretty much the same story – Terry has 52 to Ferdinand’s 20 in what is in keeping with the general expectation of the players – Terry seen as a British Bulldog, win at all costs type, with Ferdinand seen as the cultured type. In all competitions, for club and country over the 10 years we’re looking at, it’s 31 yellows and 1 red for Ferdinand, and 80 yellows and 5 reds for John Terry, with the last Red costing him a place in the Champions League Final – not that he missed the celebrations.

Goals

One area where there really is no contest is at the other end of the pitch. Whilst Ferdinand scored 7 Manchester United goals in the ten years we’re looking at, John Terry scored a massive 43 in the same period. Whilst it has nothing to do with who is a better defender (Philippe Albert anyone?), it’s certainly an interesting angle, and some could use it when looking at the all round footballers. Terry can point to goals against Roma, Arsenal, Man City and Barcelona in recent years, whilst Ferdinand’s highlights in front of goal would be scoring against Liverpool in back to back seasons.

Champions League

Of course, both players have Champions League medals and both have tasted defeat in the final, so it’s worth comparing their records in Europe – both at a group stage and a knock out stage – where in theory, the opposition are better.

Once again, Terry leads the way with the overall number of clean sheets – posting 39 against Ferdinand’s 36, however, when you take into account the number of games, then Ferdinand has the fewer number of games per clean sheet at 1.94 from 70 appearances compared to Terry’s clean sheets every 2.23 games from his 87 appearances.

Champions League break down:

So in keeping with the Premier League stats, Ferdinand is more likely to keep a clean sheet in the bigger games. Terry has kept a clean sheet for every 1.7 group games in the Champions League, but just one every 3.42 in the knock out stages. Ferdinand on the other hand is pretty consistent – averaging a clean sheet every two games regardless of the stage.

Other big games

Both players have played in three league cup finals. Ferdinand has two medals, keeping clean sheets in two games, and conceding two goals in the three games, whilst Terry’s three finals have seen five goals conceded, and one win. Moving on to the FA Cup, Ferdinand has played in two FA Cup finals – keeping a clean sheet before losing on penalties to Arsenal in 2005, and the equally thrilling 1-0 defeat to Chelsea in 2007. Surprisingly, after ten years at Old Trafford, he doesn’t have an FA Cup winners medal (he was suspended when Millwall were beaten in 2004). Terry on the other hand has four winners medals in that time (to add to his 99-00 one), keeping clean sheets against Portsmouth (2008) and Man Utd in the aforementioned snorefest. Two 2-1 victories over both Merseyside clubs completed the set. So Ferdinand has three clean sheets in five domestic Cup Finals to Terry’s two in seven.

England

So we’ve established that both are great defenders in their own right, but how we’re they together, and did they fair better with or without each other for England? Ferdinand won the first of his 81 caps in 1997 as a teenager, and even made it to the World Cup the following year as a non playing squad member. Terry would have to wait another five seasons for his first cap, and up until his recent international retirement, made 78 appearances for the Three Lions.

In the last ten years, Ferdinand’s made 59 appearances to Terry’s 72 – playing alongside eachother on 34 occasions:

In terms of clean sheets, there wasn’t really much difference. Together they kept a clean sheet every 2.20 games, Ferdinand without Terry was 2.27 and Terry without Ferdinand was 2.17 – a slight edge to Terry. In terms of goals conceded, together they let in 0.82 goals per game, with Ferdinand keeping a slightly better 0.8 conceded without Terry and Terry keeping a consistent 0.82.

Once again, there’s not a great deal in it. In terms of highlights, Terry’s clean sheet against Italy in Euro 2012, compares with Ferdinand’s clean sheet against Argentina in the 2002 World Cup. In terms of goals, it’s a bit closer than their club appearances, with Ferdinand scoring three goals for England compared to Terry’s six. Interestingly though, all of Ferdinand’s have been in competitive matches, with five of Terry’s six being in friendlies (including Brazil and Germany).

The Makelele Factor

It’s hard to put an exact impact to the Chelsea clean sheets that John Terry kept, but from 2003-04 to 2007-08 Claude Makelele played the holding midfield role so well that it was renamed the Makelele role. During that time, John Terry kept 91 of his 159 clean sheets, keeping 68 in the five seasons without him. Ferdinand meanwhile had Roy Keane for his first three seasons at the club with his best defensive performances coming after the departure of the influential skipper. And it’s fair to say that he wasn’t quite as defensively disciplined as Makelele.

Conclusion

Shock Horror, I’m going to declare this one a draw. Terry was slightly more likely to keep a clean sheet, but Ferdinand was slightly more likely to do so against the best opponents. In the big games, Ferdinand had the edge in terms of both clean sheets and goals conceded (such as domestic Cup Finals and European knock out games) but Terry was much more likely to trouble the opposition by scoring. Looking at their England records, it was near identical with and without each other. There was only ever going to be one conclusion based on the stats.

So despite your view of each player as a person, no one can honestly say that they haven’t both been excellent players – perhaps two of the best in English history. Both are coming to the end of their careers now, but for those ten years, there are very few who can compare.

Cheers,

Liam