The Association of Football Statisticians (AFS) is an organisation which collates the historical and statistical records for domestic and international association football. It operates the website 11v11.com. The AFS was founded in 1979.Statistics - 11v11.com It has published all-time world ranking lists which are not based on subjective opinion or polls, but on an objective data-driven computed assessments according to career achievements.
History The organisation is located in London. In the beginning, the AFS published a monthly newsletter under the name The Football Experts. This soon grew into a full-fledged magazine, which was published four times a year. Currently, the AFS is working on the Football Genome Project, a project that aims to bring together all match and player statistics since the inception of professional football. In addition, an extensive photo collection is also being worked on aiming at covering the entire football, while the AFS regularly publishes articles and lists based on statistical research. The publication of the World Ranking lists started in 2007.
Lists Top-100 (2007)
In November 2007, AFS announced the Top100 players of all time, with the players receiving points according to goals scored (for midfielders and forwards), matches without conceding a goal (for defenders and goalkeepers), titles won, matches played as captain. The top 100 players of this ranking are listed below.
+Top 20 playersRankPlayerNationality1Pelé2Ronaldo3Romário4Luís Figo5Zinedine Zidane6Diego Maradona7Lothar Matthaus8Gerd Müller9Franz Beckenbauer10Cafu11Roberto Carlos12Marco van Basten13Michel Platini14Rivaldo15Paolo Maldini16Zico17Raúl González18Ruud Gullit19Eusébio20Ferenc Puskas
Top-50 (2017)
The Top-50 list was first published in August 2014 as a Top-100,Top-100 (2014) - 11v11.com but it is officially presented as the 2017 edition.
In the original 2014 edition the nation with the most players in the top 100 was Germany with 14, followed closely by Spain and the Netherlands with 12 each. France and Brazil both had 11, Italy 9 and England 6. Africa had 3 players, CONCACAF 2 and Asia one.
+Top 20 playersRankPlayerNationality1Ronaldo2Pelé3Cafu4Zinedine Zidane5Lionel Messi6Lothar Matthaus7Roberto Carlos8Xavi9Romario10Franz Beckenbauer11Luis Figo12Diego Maradona13Gerd Muller14Paolo Maldini15Iker Casillas16Raúl González17Thierry Henry18Rivaldo19Cristiano Ronaldo20Marco van Basten
Controversy The AFS rankings rely vastly on career achievements and trophies and not a player's impact, while international appearances are crucial. This is why footballers such as George Best or Eric Cantona did not make the Top100 ranking, as they won few trophies and had undistinguished international careers. The AFS lists emphasise on the achievements of relatively recent players like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona who remain high on the ranking.
See also IFFHS RSSSF
References