Down in the stat nerd dungeon...

I have taken this break in club ball to research up another Americans abroad running the numbers bit for MLSS, hence my weekend disappearance. This time, it will be all about putting goals on the board. And in addition to revisiting a couple of stat categories not tallied in a while, there are a few new ones I have run through the old abacus.

I think the article should be ready to fly tomorrow, but felt like throwing a challenge out there in the brief interim. One of the brand new and shiny career stats have counted up for all the Americans that have played in Europe is late hero goals that changed the result - a ka a match-winner or a game-tying strike, as well as any goals that decided a cup tie on aggregate (goals that tick both the game and tie boxes only get counted once) in the 75th minute and beyond, including extras. The count goes for all top flights, the second divisions from England, France, Germany and the Netherlands, plus domestic and UEFA cup play.

So here is the challenge: In the comments, list for everybody your guesses for the top player on this particular career scoring chart with his number of danger-rescue goals, plus Mssrs. second and third place (order not necessary, just hit the right pair of names), the top central midfielder and the top center back. In the spirit of the exercise, make your best educated guesses - please do not spend the next 14 hours checking the wide variety of sites and other sources I wallow in for this stuff.

Let us call it six points up for grabs there; five players and the total the king of the bail-out artists has on his Euro-CV. Whoever bags the most will get a snazzy retro prize to flaunt at your next kick-about.

Ready, steady, go!




- Greg Seltzer