Didn't Rooney have to play 2nd fiddle to Ronaldo at Manchester?
maybe, i didn't watch premiere league at the time
from the stats you can see that during the 2007-08 season he started scoring more goals and giving less assists, which means that that year his role was more similar to his role at real madrid now
but even during that season, there were both rooney and tevez as strikers
during the 2008 champions league final for example, both rooney and tevez played
in real madrid, there are benzema and higuain, but they never play at the same time
I wonder what the goals per game are in England vs Spain, especially goals vs the bottom 10 team?
i'm not sure if it would mean anything, what if the forwards playing in spain are better than the ones playing in england?
but you make a good point
in england there are slightly more goals scored per match, but real madrid and barcelona are more dominant and score more goals per match than the top english clubs
here are 2 articles that go your way:
http://futbolisticametrica.blogspot.fr/2011/03/las-cifras-infladas-de-barcelona-y-real.html
http://futbolisticametrica.blogspot.fr/2012/02/los-goles-inutiles-del-real-madrid-y.html
they talk about how cristiano ronaldo's goals and messi's goal scoring tallies are inflated with useless goals against weaker opositions
if you remember, i already talked about the importance of a striker's goals, i mentioned it regarding forlan (who has an unique feature compared with other strikers, he scored more goals against barcelona than against the other la liga teams, and also he almost never scores in friendly matches with uruguay) and also when i compared higuain and benzema, i said that benzema scores more useless goals, while higuain often scores the first goal of a match (i gave the amount of points earnt by benzema and higuain's goals)
i'm going to translate the most significant stats in these articles (the stats are from the first part of the latest season, 2011-12):
*to show that the top spanish teams score a lot and that the others don't, they mention that amongst the teams ranked 5th to last, 88% have a negative goal scoring difference
they also say that half of the teams are 3 victories away from both the champions league places and the relegation (so there are a few teams that win most matches and the rest of the teams are very even)
*real madrid's useless goals: a useless goal is defined as a goal scored when the team is already leading by 2 goals or more
JUGADOR | useless goals
(total)
| useless goals %age | %age of the useless goals of the team | %age of the useful goals for the team | |
| | | | | |
CRISTIANO RONALDO | 11 (29) | 37.9 | 40.7 | 34.0 | |
BENZEMA | 5 (13) | 38.5 | 18.5 | 15.1 | |
DI MARIA | 3 (5) | 60.0 | 11.1 | 3.8 | |
HIGUAÃN | 2 (14) | 14.3 | 7.4 | 22.6 | |
CALLEJÓN | 2 (4) | 50.0 | 7.4 | 3.8 | |
KAKÃ | 1 (4) | 25.0 | 3.7 | 5.7 | |
MARCELO | 1 (3) | 33.3 | 3.7 | 3.8 | |
ALTINTOP | 1 (1) | 100.0 | 3.7 | 0 | |
XABI | 1 (1) | 100.0 | 3.7 | 0 | |
| | | | | |
TOTAL | 27 (80) | 33.8 | 100.0 | | |
so 1 goal out of 3 is useless for the team and is only usefull to inflate players stats
you can see that as i pointed out in another thread, benzema's goals are the most useless out of the strikers, while higuain's goals are the most useful ones
*barcelona's useless goals:
JUGADOR | useless goals
(total) | useless goals %age | %age of the useless goals of the team | %age of the useful goals for the team | |
| | | | | |
MESSI | 13 (28) | 46.4 | 50.0 | 34.1 | |
VILLA | 4 (5) | 80.0 | 15.4 | 2.3 | |
ALEXIS | 2 (8) | 25.0 | 7.7 | 13.6 | |
XAVI | 2 (7) | 28.6 | 7.7 | 11.4 | |
ISAAC CUENCA | 2 (2) | 100.0 | 7.7 | 0 | |
ALVES | 1 (2) | 50.0 | 3.8 | 2.3 | |
PUYOL | 1 (1) | 100.0 | 3.8 | 0 | |
P.P. | 1 (1) | | | | |
| | | | | |
TOTAL | 26 (70) | 37.1 | 100.0 | | |
almost half of messi's goals are useless
the same can be said about falcao this season: but we might see falcao in premiere league in the future so we will be able to compare
i already mentionned this notion of goal importance with forlan, who's the caricatural example of a player who scores in the biggest matches, the most important goals
this is what i said about him:
to this point, forlan had played 6 years in spain and scored a lot of goals
but even more impressive than his incredible goal-scoring record (120 goals in 208 appearances) are the teams against which he scored these goals
forlan is known as a player who always is at his best in the most important matches
his goal-scoring record for uruguay, with only 5 goals out of 33 that were scored in friendlies, shows it
this comes from a very individualistic approach in the preparation leading to the match, which comes from his years when he played tennis
the teams against which forlan scored the most goals to this point were:
1-athletic bilbao
2-barcelona (10 goals in 9 matches)
this means that when one looks at forlans career, he has to see beyond the incredible goal-scoring record because forlan is even better than that
this is why forlan can challenge players like messi or ronaldo or rooney for the "best player in the world" status
this proves that forlan not only is a very good goal-scorer like the media says, he's actually the best in the world
in premiere league, there are many black strikers who inflate their goal scoring tallies with useless goals
i remember that on quite a few occasions, defoe scored 3, even 4 goals in a match
black striker gomis also did the fastest ever hat trick in champions league against zagreb, and is one of the few to have scored 4 goals in one champions league match, in that infamous match against zagreb, which was either fixed, or extremely one-sided (zagreb didn't have anything to win from that match anyways)