Goalscorers Top 3 and World Cup

     12 Europeans and 9 South American (I counted Sanchez as latino)

If we compare the best goalscorers separating Europeans and Latinos, and then doing the same with World Cup over the same period of time (since end of World War 2) we get similar patterns. At number one, Europeans and Latinos get similar results (top goalscorer and World Cup Winner). It diverges for number two and three. The reason is that only two countries are really competitive in South America (Brazil and Argentina), with Uruguay occasionally. In Europe many countries since WW2 could pretend to reach World Cup Semifinals. But why Brazil and Argentina are so competitive and often aim at spot number one? The answer is that most of the time they won the World Cup, they had the best player in the world, who are actually the two best players in football history (Pelé and Maradona). Or had top strikers ranked number one in my study like Romario and Ronaldo. It's what it takes to win a World Cup. Having a good defence is not enough, you need great goalscorers and star players, and South America often have natural offensive talents. European teams won the last three World Cup without having the best offensive player in the world. They relied on collective strength, good organizacion, and good defence. And back then, they only had six World Cup Wins instead of the actual nine. Because the recent Brazilian and Argentinian star like Kaka, Neymar and Messi failed where Pelé, Romario, Ronaldo and Maradona did not.

Dificulty line legend

I made intermediate rankings (75-84, 65-74, 55-64...) between the rankings because a player born early in a decade was closer in age to a player born late in the pevious decade, than late in his own decade. Ibrahimovic (81) is closer in age with all the players born between 1975-79 than he is to Lewandowski (88). It means it would be more logical that Ibra should compete with the born 1975-79 than Lewandowski or Aguero. So making intermediate rankings make sense, and allow another interesting comparison. Some players appear in two rankings (main and intermediate), but not in the same positions, obviously, as they compete with others players. The dificulty line take into account two players having diferent ranking position in the two rankings. The black line take into account the highest ranked players, and the red line the lowest ranked players appearing in the top 8 list.

Black dificulty line:

Players	Main ranking	Intermediate ranking
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (81)	Born 80s	75-84
Ruud Van Nistelrooy (76)	Born 70s	75-84
Christian Vieri (73)	Born 70s	65-74
Davor Suker (68)	Born 60s	65-74
Gary Lineker (60)	Born 60s	55-64
Michel Platini (55)	Born 50s	55-64
Zico (53)	Born 50s	45-54
Klaus Fischer (49)	Born 40s	45-54
Pelé (40)	Born 40s	35-44
Luis Artime (38)	Born 30s	35-44
Kurt Hamrin (34)	Born 30s	25-34
Ferenc Puskas (27)	Born 20s	25-34

Red dificulty line:

Players	Main ranking	Intermediate ranking
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (83)	Born 80s	75-84
Andriy Schevchenko (76)	Born 70s	75-84
Alan Shearer (70)	Born 70s	65-74
Roberto Baggio (67)	Born 60s	65-74
Marco Van Basten (64)	Born 60s	55-64
Hugo Sanchez (58)	Born 50s	55-64
Hans Krankl (53)	Born 50s	45-54
Johan Cruyff (47)	Born 40s	45-54
Eusebio (42)	Born 40s	35-44
Uwe Seeler (36)	Born 30s	35-44
Kurt Hamrin (34)	Born 30s	25-34
Alfredo Di Stefano (27)	Born 20s	25-34

The two lines follow the same pattern (except for the last bit) and show something interesting. When the line goes up, it means it's less competitive, as the player is high ranked. When it goes down, it means it's more competitive, as the same player is ranked lower due to fiercer competition.

The line go up for:

Born 70s, Born 50s, Born 30s

The line go down for:

Born 80s, Born 60s, Born 40s

I get to the conclusion that one competitive decade is followed by a less competitive decade and so on...

Every decade has to be compared with the surrounding decade and not with the entire line, cause it gives a false impresion. Let's for example take the most competitive decade, Born 40s

	Born 50s	Born 40s	Born 30s
Black line	2 (ranking)	6	3
Red line	6	12	8

So the “Born 40s” is a lot more competitive than the “Born 30s”, not to mention the “Born 50s”, which is the less competitive decade of all.

We cannot draw a definitive conclusion about the “Born 80s” as we don't have enough information about the “Born 90s” (too young). But for the half information we have comparing them with the “Born 70s”, the differences look about the same as with the “Born 60s”, quite competitive, but no as much as the “Born 40s”. And it's no surprise as the “Born 40s” saw the two best goalscorers all categories (Gerd Muller and Gigi Riva).

Dificulty line

Table 2 (national team coefficient)

World Cup	C	Europe Cup	C	Copa America	C	Concacaf	C	Africa Cup	C
				1945	2.12
				1946	2.03
1948 O	2.83			1947	1.82
1950 Q	2.40			1949	2.33
1950	2.0
1952 O	2.59			1953	1.5
1954 Q	1.82			1955	2.43
1954	2.69			1956 P	1.63
				1956	1.26
1958 Q	1.91			1957	2.4
1958	1.8	1960 Q	1.89	1959	2.00
1962 Q	1.76	1960	2.12
1962	1.39	1964 Q	1.58	1963	2.16			1963	2.06
1966 Q	1.54	1964	1.62					1965	1.94
1966	1.39	1968 Q	1.57	1967	1.63			1968	1.62
1970 Q	1.57	1968	0.70					1970	1.59
1970	1.48	1972 Q	1.34					1972	1.65
1974 Q	1.37	1972	1.25
1974	1.27	1976 Q	1.39	1975	1.58
1978 Q	1.43	1976	2.37			1977	1.84
1978	1.34	1980 Q	1.51	1979	1.26
1982 Q	1.30	1980	0.96			1981	0.94
1982	1.40	1984 Q	1.47	1983	1.14
1986 Q	1.30	1984	1.36			1985	1.13
1986	1.27	1988 Q	1.20	1987	1.27
1990 Q	1.17	1988	1.13
1990	1.10	1992 Q	1.35	1989	1.06	1989	0.80
1994 Q	1.45	1992	1.06	1991	1.04	1991	1.57
1994	1.35	1996 Q	1.49	1993	1.23	1993	1.88
1998 Q	1.49	1996	1.03	1995	1.32			1998	1.45
1998	1.33	2000 Q	1.43	1997	1.29			2000	1.14
2002 Q	1.58	2000	1.37	1999	1.42			2002	0.75
2002	1.26	2004 Q	1.35	2001	1.15			2004	1.37
2006 Q	1.45	2004	1.24	2004	1.50			2006	1.14
2006	1.15	2008 Q	1.37	2007	1.65			2008	1.54
2010 Q	1.37	2008	1.24					2010	1.22
2010	1.13	2012 Q	1.35	2011	1.04			2012	1.19
2014 Q	1.40	2012	1.22					2013	1.08
2014	1.33	2016 Q	1.30	2015	1.13

O: Olympic games

Q: Qualification (World Cup & Eurocopa)

Goals ponderation:

75% : Concacaf & Africa (qualified regularly for World Cup)

66.66% : Concacaf & Africa (never qualified for World Cup)