Messi's, Pelé's and Müller's eras and goal scoring.

Messi broke yesterday all time European goal scoring record for a club, in one season, in all competitions, 68. Previous record 67 was held by Gerd Müller 72-73 for 39 years. Pelé’s best goal scoring season was 1958 when he scored 66 goals.

But which of these incredible goal scoring seasons is the best one? One viable method to examine these is the so called era adjusting, used also in sports, to compare goal totals in different eras.

First you take the average number of goals scored in the particular competitions players played, and compare them to the particular player. From this you get the era adjustment ratio. Then you compare the amount of games played, which you get the schedule adjustment ratio. The overall ratio you get when you multiply: era adjustment ratio x schedule ratio x goals scored.


In this table we have era adjusted statistics of Messi, Müller and Pelé, which would suggest that Messi’s current season is the best goal scoring season ever:

Zealous wrote:Era adjusting

That means Cristiano is better than Muller and Pele too

jiopsi wrote:


It's just one way to compare different era's.