17 categories, one sample: Ruud van Nistelrooy against 199 of the most recognizable footballers in DailyFoot's data. Every card shows the whole field's distribution with Ruud van Nistelrooy 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
Ruud van Nistelrooy: 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.
0.500goals per capTop 13%
#27 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.
2.00caps per goalLowest 15%
#27 of 180 · sample median 3.88
Ruud van Nistelrooy: Goals per international season
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.
2.50goals per seasonTop 30%
#60 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.
2.10× their era's averageTop 8%
#16 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.
5.00caps per seasonBottom 14%
#170 of 198 · sample median 7.50
Ruud van Nistelrooy: Goals per centimetre of height
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.
0.186goals per cmTop 32%
#59 of 184 · sample median 0.100
Ruud van Nistelrooy: Centimetres of height per goal
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.
5.4cm per goalLowest 35%
#59 of 166 · sample median 8.2
Trophies won, trophies per appearance, and how widely the player is written about.
15 · Silverware and fame
Ruud van Nistelrooy: 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.
0.00per 100 capsBottom 31%
#136 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.
1.07languages per capTop 35%
#69 of 198 · sample median 0.89