by Ruairi Criscuolo
For me there are different eras when it comes to football statistics. Pre-war numbers are often insane, as players scored nine goals in one game, games regularly had score lines like 11-3 and strikers who also worked in the factory finished with 70 goals in a season. Post-war, the numbers and statistics started to calm down as the game became more professional, organised and less erratic. Tallies of 30-40 goals in a season were deemed impressive, as the game began to develop both tactically and technically. These numbers continued into the 1990s and 2000s with players winning The Golden Boot with totals around the mid-thirties, up until the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
These footballers have now set records that look part of a bygone era. In 2011-2012 Messi notched up 50 goals in one season, and Ronaldo nearly matched him in 2014-2015 with 48 goals. When you look through The Golden Boot winners over the last twelve years, it is a straight shootout between the pair, with only Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez managing to break the complete dominance of the two. But now we are not looking at either of the years mentioned above, because the year we are focusing on is 2012.
MESSI'S FEAST - Ah, 2012. Snapchat and Instagram were new, that lady tried to improve the painting of Jesus and Lionel Messi scored 91 goals. Yes, 91. For Barcelona he scored 79 in 60 games, and adding to that twelve in nine for Argentina. Funnily though, that season his Barça team managed to still finish second behind Real Madrid in La Liga and were knocked out of the semi-finals of the Champions League by Chelsea.
Trophy-wise, it wasn't Messi's most successful season by any stretch, but individually he was quite evidently at the peak of his powers. He averaged a goal every 66 minutes on the field, bettering 13 of the 20 La Liga teams in goals scored per game. Yes, we are talking about teams, not players. When you look through the goals, always a nice way to spend half an hour on YouTube, you can see every single type of goal, headers, volleys, chips, dribbles, free-kicks the lot. But one particular type of goal seems to be on repeat. He gets the ball at his feet just in the final third, shrugs off one defender, then another, runs at the keeper, side steps and stokes the ball across the front of the keeper into the far corner. For me, this is the archetypal Messi goal.
DER BOMBER - So, onto the record holder before him. This man was also a striker with a “trademark” goal, he also is only associated with one team and he once scored 85 goals in a calendar year. Gerd Müller, or Der Bomber, as he was affectionately known, played for Bayern Munich and West Germany when he set the record, taking it off Godfrey Chitalu, a Zambian striker who had scored 81 goals in 1968.
In 1972, Gerd Müller became the most deadly striker in the world, and he did it entirely from within the 6-yard box. He was the typical poacher in the right place at the right time, and looking through his goals you could be forgiven for thinking you’re watching repeats. He often found himself on the end of crosses, finding that inch of space and finding the touch to send it home. However this is not to denigrate him as a player, he was not some lucky fool who found himself here, he worked hard for it and never gave defenders a moment's rest as he was constantly on the move, pulling his opposite numbers around the park. In his record-breaking year, he scored his 85 goals in only 60 games. Now just take a second to comprehend those numbers, it took me some time.
62 of those goals came for Bayern Munich in 53 games and the other 13 came in 7 games for West Germany. His goals that year laid the foundations for Bayern to win the Bundesliga in both 1971-1972 and 1972-1973, but it wasn’t only domestically that he impressed. In fact, he scored goals aplenty in the European Cup as he got a hat-trick against Galatasaray and an incredible seven against Apoel Nicosia in the early rounds, but success in this competition would come a bit later for Muller. When it did come, he won a hat-trick of European Cups between 1974 and 1976, with West Germany and Bayern captain Franz Beckenbauer saying that “everything Bayern have become is due to Müller”. Der Bomber truly was the focal point of the team: each player knew that if they just got a ball into the box, chances were he would be there to poke it home.
INTERNATIONAL GLORY - On the international stage, his goals for West Germany lead them to lift the European Championship trophy in Belgium as he scored four goals in two games, split evenly between both the semi-final and the final. He both opened and closed the scoring against the USSR in the final, as his side ran out 3-0 winners and became the first German team to do so. Throughout this year, Müller also set the record for most consecutive goals for Die Mannschaft, with eight goals in a row being netted by him. Furthermore, in the same year, he got four goal hauls in friendlies against Switzerland and the USSR. The West German side of 1972 is considered to be amongst the finest German teams ever assembled, and Gerd Müller takes pride of place in that team.
Here we have two very different players, who had two very differing years in terms of success. Müller picked up a league title and a European Championship, while Messi, despite his best efforts, only finished with a Spanish Super Cup to show for it. However, this quite nicely sums up both players. Messi isn’t defined by how many he can score: he is defined by how he can score. Der Bomber, on the other hand, was all about hard statistics and outcomes, all very German really. In a time when it can feel that football was invented in 1993 and that we are seeing the best of the game, it’s important to look back and see the players that blazed the trail for our heroes today.