Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Native Born Leading Goal Scorers

This table shows the nations that have had a drought of native born goal scoring leaders in their top-level leagues. The players listed must have been "born" in the country of their league to make the list. This means that Polish-born Miroslav Klose in Germany and Jamaican-born Jeff Cunningham in MLS didn't make the list, even though they both lead their leagues in scoring in 2006.

The table shows the last player to lead their home league in scoring.

Player Club Nation
Goals
Year
Michael Preetz Hertha Berlin Germany
23
1998-99
Kevin Phillips Sunderland England
30
1999-00
Diego Tristan Deportivo La Coruna Spain
21
2001-02
Djibril Cisse Auxerre France
26
2001-02
Naohiro Takahara Jubilo Iwata Japan
26
2002
Simão Sabrosa Benfica Portugal
18
2002-03
Markus Rosenberg Hamstads BK Sweden
14
2004
Taylor Twellman New England Revolution USA
17
2005
Steffen Hojer Viborg FF Denmark
16
2005-06
Dirk Kuyt Feyenoord Netherlands
24
2005-06


Serie A has had an Italian born top scorer since 2003-04, when Andriy Schevchenko led the league. David Trezeguet, Adrian Mutu, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic are all close to the top this season though.

German Born Mario Gomez is three goals back of Luca Toni in the Bundesliga, it looks like another year may go by without a German born top scorer.

Jermaine Defoe has 12 goals, Cristiano Ronaldo has 28. I don't think he's going to catch up.

It looks like Lyon's Karim Benzema may end the six year French scoring title drought in Ligue 1, he leads the league with 17 goals currently, two more than trailing Mamadou Niang from Senegal.

Which American born player can take the MLS scoring crown this year?

2 comments:

  1. Isn't Hasselbaink Dutch?

    How about Kenny Cooper?

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  2. Thanks Chris, I've been short on time the past week and I've made a couple of silly mistakes.

    I don't know why but I've always mixed up JF Hasselbaink with Emile Heskey. I'm surprised nobody caught that one sooner. I've changed it, Kevin Phillips topped the league the prior season.

    I wouldn't argue with Cooper leading the league this year. Good choice.

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