Talk:Assist (association football)

Internal vs official-partner vs private
I am worried by uncritical repeating of Lionel Messi's alleged record number of assists. There are two issues:
 * 1) Who is keeping count? Aggregating statistics from different sources is dodgy. Especially for friendly matches.
 * 2) Records for players from before the 1990s are patchy at best; Messi for better or worse cannot be compared to them

Statistics may be kept by:
 * 1) An official body appointed by the organisers; e.g.
 * 2) * Technical Committee at the FIFA World Cup finals
 * 3) * Dubious Goals Committee -- do they do dubious assists?
 * 4) A sports analytics company; either
 * 5) * as an "official partner" of the organiser
 * 6) * as an "official partner" of the "official broadcaster"
 * 7) * privately
 * 8) **funded by subscription to media
 * 9) **funded by advertising
 * 10) **gratis by volunteers
 * 11) A media organisation's own journalists/reporters

Statistics from any of the above may be notable, but need to be explained.
 * The earliest evidence I found online of UEFA officially tracking assists in the Champions League is from 2001–02. I would guess that might be pushed back to the mid-90s at the earliest. jnestorius(talk) 20:37, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Opta have UCL stats starting from 2003. Dunno if Opta were or are official UEFA stats at any stage. jnestorius(talk) 09:19, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * whoscored.com uses Opta Sports data for "Premier League (England), Serie A (Italy), La Liga (Spain), Bundesliga (Germany), Ligue 1 (France), Championship (England), Eredivisie (Netherlands), Premier League (Russia), MLS (USA), Super Lig (Turkey), Serie A (Brazil) & UEFA Champions League & Europa League"; that doesn't prove Opta is an official partner of all those.

jnestorius(talk) 20:37, 5 June 2020 (UTC)