17 categories, one sample: Lothar Matthäus against 199 of the most recognizable footballers in DailyFoot's data. Every card shows the whole field's distribution with Lothar Matthäus pinned inside it.
Every ranking here is drawn from the same sample: DailyFoot's 199 most recognizable footballers, using the caps, goals, career years and honours in the game's own data.
Scoring rates
Goals measured against appearances, seasons and the era the player scored them in.
01 · Scoring
Lothar Matthäus: Goals per cap
International goals divided by international appearances. The purest scoring rate this data can support, and the number pundits mean by "goals-per-game ratio". Players under 20 caps are left out: a ratio over a handful of matches ranks first and means nothing.
0.153goals per capBottom 38%
#123 of 198 · sample median 0.243
How many international appearances the player needed for each goal they scored. The same fact as goals per cap, read the way a scouting note phrases it: lower is more lethal.
6.52caps per goalHighest 32%
#123 of 180 · sample median 3.88
International goals spread across the years between a first and last cap. It rewards scoring a lot in a short window, which a per-cap rate hides: two players on the same ratio can be ten years apart in how fast they got there.
1.10goals per seasonBottom 38%
#123 of 198 · sample median 1.68
Goals per cap divided by the average goals per cap of everyone in this sample who debuted in the same decade. 1.00 is exactly average for the era, 2.00 is twice as prolific as the players they actually played against. Scoring rates fell as the game professionalised, so this is the fairest way to put a 1950s forward next to a modern one.
0.52× their era's averageBottom 35%
#130 of 198 · sample median 0.89
Appearances divided by the seasons between a first and last cap: how relentlessly a player was picked while they were in the squad, rather than how long they lasted. Fixture calendars grew over the decades, so the leaders here are almost all modern.
7.14caps per seasonBottom 45%
#109 of 198 · sample median 7.50
International goals divided by height in centimetres. Nothing about football says a shorter player should score more, which is exactly what makes the ranking readable: it is the goal tally with the tall forwards handicapped, and the smallest names on it climb.
0.132goals per cmTop 42%
#77 of 184 · sample median 0.100
Height in centimetres divided by international goals. The inverse of goals per centimetre, where the lowest number is the most efficient body in the sample.
7.6cm per goalLowest 46%
#77 of 166 · sample median 8.2
Trophies won, trophies per appearance, and how widely the player is written about.
15 · Silverware and fame
Lothar Matthäus: Major trophies
World Cups, continental titles, Nations Leagues, Olympic golds and European Cups/Champions Leagues added together. Domestic leagues and cups are not in this data, so this counts the honours the game itself asks about, not a full trophy cabinet.
Major trophies scaled to a hundred appearances: silverware rate rather than silverware total, which stops a long career from automatically outranking a decorated short one.
0.67per 100 capsBottom 34%
#132 of 198 · sample median 1.29
How many Wikipedia language editions cover the player, divided by their caps. A rough measure of fame earned per appearance: high means the world knows them for something other than turning up a lot.
0.57languages per capBottom 8%
#183 of 198 · sample median 0.89