Gio
★★★★★★★★
Well it is for the top strikers at the top clubs.The argument that defenses were better and more conservative back then is valid up to a certain point. What I don't understand is if defenses today are weaker which makes it easier to score to a certain degree, why hasn't anybody else put up close to the kind of numbers Messi and Ronaldo have in the same era. No other player has even come close to their peak numbers, shouldn't it be easier to score for everybody else too?
- La Liga - 30 goals breached by the top scorer every year during the last decade by 4 players (Forlan, Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez). Only Sanchez and Ronaldo had done it previously in the last 70 years.
- Serie A - single season record of 36 goals set in 2015/16 by Higuain. 7 times in the last 9 years the top scorer has netted 28 or more, and before Toni in 2005/06 nobody in Serie A had scored 28 or more in a season since the 1950s.
- Ligue Un - Ibra's 38 goals in 2015/16 the highest in 45 years. Along with Cavani in 2016/17 the only men to break 30 goals in 40 years.
- Bundesliga - Aubameyang's 31 goals in 2016/17 the highest in over 40 years. 29 goals has been broken in each of the last 3 years, yet has only been matched once since 1981 before that.
- 2/70 going to 10/10
- 0/50 going to 7/9
- 0/38 going to 2/3
- 0/36 going to 3/3
For various reasons such as the gulf between the best clubs and the rest being wider, the game becoming more friendly for attackers both through more favourable refereeing, rules and a more supportive environment (pitches, balls, boots).
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