Leaving aside all of the issues of how statistical measures can represent sporting achievement, the "raw" numbers on soccer certainly present a problem for anyone trying to compare the degree to which Pele could be said to be "better" than possible rivals with Bradman's astonishing edge over all other Test batsmen (avg of 100 vs 60 for nearest rival). The era-adjusted numbers establish support for the consensus view of Pele but his edge in goalscoring is only about 10%. Pele was not only a goalscorer, of course, especially towards the end of his career, but some great players were never at any point primarily goalscorers (e.g.Beckenbauer, Moore). Absent some method of measuring the contribution of non-goalscorers, scoring goals is just about all that's available in football and, as far as it goes, this seems to confirm the singularity of "the Don's" achievements.

Interesting, no doubt, but what does it have to do with Bradman?

Carrying on, the leading scorers are:Puskas-Hungary(last cap 1956)- 84 goals in 89 games;Pele-Brazil(1971)-77(91);Koscis-Hungary(1956)-75(68);Muller-Germany(1974)-68(62); and Batistuta - Argentina(current)-56(78). To correct for differences in eras, I grouped the 86 players (with some restrictions -more later) who have scored 30 goals or more into five eras;1950s, 1960s,1970s,1980s and 1990s on. The average goals per game of the scorers in these eras are, respectively; 0.73, 0.69, 0.59, 0.46 and 0.48. The average for the entire sample is 0.53. To correct for era, each scorers goals are multiplied by the ratio of their era's goals per game ratio to the overall (0.53). This results in the following. Puskas drops to 62 "equivalent goals", Pele to 69,Koscis to 55, Muller to 61 and Batistuta rises to 63, edging out Puskas for second spot. While there's much, much more to report from this and related analyses, I would think most fans (except those who follow the Argentinian closely) would be surprised to rank Batistuta so highly.

A start has been made on constructing an all-time international goalscorers ranking for football ("soccer" to N Americans). So far the analysis confirms Pele as the "era-corrected" leading scorer; but the number two slot is a bit of a surpise - Gabriel Batistuta.