7

Are there some football players who have better average than 1 goal per game in their club career? Or if we restrict only to one competition, not the whole career? Or to one season of a competition?

I think it would be good to restrict the question to top club competitions, such as top European leagues, Champions league, etc. (Although not everyone will probably agree which club competitions should be considered top.) And, clearly, we should also omit players who only played a few games.

Similar question for games at international level was posted recently here: Who is the best striker (best goals/appearances ratio) with 25/50/100+ national caps?

Improve this question
1
  • 2
    I might be wrong but my guess it that there are probably not too many players who managed something like this in some of the prestigious competitions. I know that Cristiano Ronaldo's record in La Liga is 260 goals in 253 games at the moment. Some players with similar record in one season are mentioned here.
    – Martin
    Sep 21, 2014 at 9:17

7 Answers 7

Reset to default
4

There are a few who have score more goals than club appearances, caps refers to country appearances though.

Some notable are below

Rank    Name                Country                  Years      Matches   Goals
1.  Josef Bican             Austria  Czechoslovakia  1931-1956  918       1468
2.  Gerd Müller             Germany                  1962-1983  1216      1461
3.  Arthur Friedenreich     Brazil                   1909-1935  1239      1329
4.  Pelé                    Brazil                   1956-1990  1375      1389
5.  Franz Binder            Austria  Germany         1930-1949  756       1006

For caps there is only one who scored more than 1 per game, I've included down to Ali Daei as he is the all time top scorer for international games!

#    Country    Name                International goals   Caps  Goals per Match
1    Denmark    Poul Nielsen        52                    38    1.37
2    Hungary    Ferenc Puskás       84                    85    0.99
3    Japan      Kunishige Kamamoto  80                    84    0.95
4    Brazil     Pelé                77                    92    0.84
5    Italy      Luigi Riva          35                    42    0.83
6    Zambia     Godfrey Chitalu     79                    108   0.73
7    Norway     Jørgen Juve         33                    45    0.73
8    Iran       Ali Daei            109                   149   0.72
Improve this answer
4
  • Sorry for my incorrect terminology - I did not know that the word caps is only for international games. At international level there are also Sándor Kocsis and Gerd Müller with averages above 1 goal per game, as can be seen in an answer to a similar question.
    – Martin
    Sep 26, 2014 at 11:09
  • I guess the first part of your answer is based on List of top association football goal scorers. (Of course, my guess might be wrong.) I think it would be good to include the source into your post. Perhaps it is also worth mentioning that the recent revision of the Wikipedia article contains the warning saying that: This article's factual accuracy is disputed.
    – Martin
    Sep 26, 2014 at 12:42
  • Where does this data come from? Neither Pelé nor Gerd Müller (and I'm sure the other three players too) come even close to these numbers.
    – Fair Player
    Oct 4, 2018 at 20:37
  • Update: well, according to some sources they scored these numbers indeed. But it includes also exhibition games which is not the subject of the question.
    – Fair Player
    Oct 4, 2018 at 20:43
3

Fernando Peyroteo is one of the best strikers (maybe the best, attending to the statistics) in football history. He was a Portuguese striker and has played in Sporting Clube de Portugal (former club of Cristiano Ronaldo) all his career.

Appearances: 197 Goals: 330 Average: 1.68 goals/game

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Peyroteo

Improve this answer
2

Players with more international goals than caps
Sandor Kocsis, Hungary - 75 goals in 68 games (1.10 ratio)
Gerd Muller, West Germany - 68 in 62 (1.10)
Poul Nielsen, Denmark - 52 in 38 (1.37)
Sven Rydell, Sweden - 49 in 43 (1.14)
Gunnar Nordahl, Sweden - 43 in 33 (1.30)
Ernest Wilimowski, Poland & West Germany - 34 in 30 (1.13)
Just Fontaine, France - 30 in 21 (1.43)
Ferenc Deak, Hungary - 29 in 20 (1.45)
Vivian Woodward, England - 29 in 23 (1.26)
Bep Bakhuys, Netherlands - 28 in 23 (1.22)
Steve Bloomer, England - 28 in 24 (1.17)
Istvan Avar, Romania & Hungary - 27 in 23 (1.17)
Hughie Gallagher, Scotland - 23 in 20 (1.15)
Leonidas da Silva, Brazil - 21 in 19 (1.11)
Herminio Masantonio, Argentina - 21 in 19 (1.11)

Improve this answer
2
2

To my knowledge, Puskás had more goals than caps for Real Madrid, so does Cristiano, but the only top level player to my knowledge who has more goals than appearance in club football is Eusébio, the Portuguese legend who played for Benfica. He has 749 goals from 743 appearance with various clubs

Improve this answer
1

Jimmy McGrory scored more goals in 1 season than Bican did.

He holds the British record for the most goals in a season and and Bican played for 8 different clubs while McGrory only played for 1 until he was loaned out for one year to finish his career at Clydebank. Bican also played for 3 national sides, none of which he scored more goals than caps. Jimmy McGrory's record for Scotland was small but 6 goals in 7 games is not too shabby.

enter image description here

Improve this answer
1
  • McGrory was loaned to Clydebank at the beginning of his career, not the end.
    – Nij ♦
    Oct 4, 2018 at 19:44
-1

Sorry but the main man should be in here James McGrory scored 550 goals in 547 appearances that has to be one of the best records in the world

Improve this answer
2
  • To get to 550 goals, you are counting both club matches and international goals, right?
    – Martin
    Sep 11, 2015 at 13:46
  • 2
    And in any case, 550 goals in 547 appearances pales in comparison with the 1468 goals in 918 appearances by Josef Bican as noted in DannyBland's answer.
    – Philip Kendall ♦
    Sep 11, 2015 at 13:53
-1

Josef Bican with almost 1.500 goals in 900 matches at the highest peak. With Benefit and friendlies he had scored a estimated 4.500 - 5.500 official goals. Also when he played for the worst national team he beat France, Germany, England, Italy and Spain and always scored two or three or more goals. You can see he played in a bad league but his Team won against the best defensive teams in world like Juventus or Inter Milan or AC Milan with 8-1 or 10-0.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.