I dont get this, why is nearly every single leading scorer from the new era?
Why is it never like „yeah he played in the 70s and is leading scorer off xyz“
You can check that, i am not talking bs, its hard to find a leading scorer that was in his prime between 1970-90
Why?
fuckin idiot you could have worked this out for yourself
One factor is money. More money in football nowadays means more transfers internationally, meaning players stay for less time at each club.
1970 - 1990 is the peak of low scoring football. Goals per game in world cups just to cite one statistic were at their lowest in tournaments in this era. There are multiple possible reasons for this (poor pitch quality, poor fitness, tactical trends towards favouring defence and 1-0 wins over free flowing goal fests) but it’s a well observed trend among many football statisticians that the 70s and 80s represent the nadir for goal scoring in professional football.
My clubs all time goalscorer is from the 70s
More matches nowadays, and better fitness. Longer careers too, there’s money in the tail end years where guys used to just quit.
More concentration of talent (and money). The days when Steaua could win the European Cup have long passed. Instead we have a small number of teams that utterly dominate their domestic competitions. You didn’t have superstars in every position on a team, and so you didn’t have as many uneven matches.
Defensive tactics had to be unravelled by rule changes like the passback rule and various fouling rules. Average goals scored at the WC dipped in the era you’re talking about and came back later.
Counterpoint
Jimmy Greaves
Air travel much more common now.
Michael Cox did an article on this in The Athletic a few months ago. Iirc, all of the ‘Big 6’ record scorers were in the 21st century with the exception of Liverpool. But for the other 86 teams in the league, all of the record scorers were pre-2000, with the exception of clubs like Salford and AFC Wimbledon that don’t have that history. The reason was basically that these days if a striker from a club outside Premier League, or even bottom half of the league, starts getting a few goals such that they might break their club’s record, one of the big boys buys them and it never happens.
Yep, my club Bristol City is the perfect example of this. Our top scorer John Atyeo has 351 goals. He even got 5 goals in 6 England caps despite never playing top flight. He almost certainly had offers to move but didn’t. These days he’d be out the door after one good season.
This is interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Good shout, I think your comment also gives weight to the fact that even after the abolition of the minimum wage the pay gap between different levels wasn’t as it is today.
Defending has got worse, the offside rule now favours the attacking team. Plus the 3 instead of two points for a win means it’s more advantageous to attack than it was in the 70s
Agreed except defending hasn’t worse. Rule changes now mean rougher defending is now illegal. Also pitches, balls improving make getting the ball in the net easier
Maybe the skill gap between players was less that time. Idk
There were less international games back then. In addition to this, the qualifying was more streamlined.
For example, qualification in Europe for the 1974 World Cup was made up of 9 groups - 5 groups of 4 and 4 groups of 3. Some teams only played 4 qualification games, the most anybody played was 6 games. In COMNEBOL, it was a similar format, now they play 17 games.
If you now add in more friendlies, nations league games etc and increased amount of teams for continental tournaments like the Euros. They’re playing way more games now, and more games against minnows in qualifying.
For example, of Cristiano Ronaldo’s 128 international goals (an incredible record btw). 11 of them have been against Luxembourg, 7 against Lithuania, 6 against Andorra, 5 against Armenia, 4 against Estonia and the Faroe Islands etc.
Back in those times there were only 2 points for a win which impacted the number of goals. You had less to gain from win vs draw vs loose than you have with todays 3 points for a win system. Guess it was more draws back then.
Modern footballer play more games it’s as easy as that. Just look at the World Cup or Euros. In 1960s the Euros was just a semi final and then a final. Then it expanded and more and more teams joined. In 1996 euros got a quarter final and then in 2016 it got round of 16th.
More games equals more opportunities to score especially vs lower ranked teams.
The English top flight all time top scorer is still Jimmy greaves although kane recently beat is club record for spurs. European competition has more matches now as do world cups and euros so that explains why most clubs and national sides all time top scorers are recent players
FC Bayerns leading scorer is (by far) Gerd Müller with 568 goals. 2nd is Lewandowski with 344 and 3rd Thomas Müller with 237.
But maybe an exception because he was one of the best strikers ever.