Zlatan Ibrahimovic once said, “Lions don’t compare themselves to humans.” 

We hear you, Z. But, we can’t help ourselves.

We want to find who the best striker in the world was between 2010 and 2020. We’re not talking about attacking players who also played as strikers, we’re only analysing pure nine-on-the-back strikers.

So, our analysis doesn’t include the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi. 

The short-list we’ve selected are:

• Karim Benzema.

• Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

• Luis Suarez.

• Robert Lewandowski.

We’ve looked at every aspect of their career:

• Club career: league, domestic and international cup goals and assists.

• European and international career: UEFA Cup, UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Super Cup.

• International career: goal involvements for their country.

• Market value: a proxy for how much contemporaries valued each player at their peak.

In each category, we’ve ranked each player based on the analysis. The best player in each category scores 4 points, the second best scores 3 points, the third best scores 2 points and the fourth best scores 1 point. 

Here’s what we found.

Club career

The analysis starts with each striker’s club performance. This includes league, domestic cup and international cup goals and assists.

Of course, all four strikers have played in different leagues, against different oppositions and with different teams. With so many variables, it makes it tough to standardise the results across each player. But, they’ve all played at the highest level and the toughest leagues in Europe which gives some level of consistency.

Let’s start with the striker’s league goals at club level.

Goals

Across all four, the average number of goals is 430.25. The below graph shows the number of goals they’ve scored for their clubs at each age. 

When it comes to an aggregate number of league goals, Lewandowski is the clear front-runner with 509. At the time of writing this, Lewandowski is still active and playing for Barcelona so he’ll only continue to add to his goal tally. 

Suarez is second with 421 goals, Benzema third with 399 goals and Ibrahimovic is fourth with 392. 

It’s worth noting that Ibrahimovic is the only player of the four to retire from professional football so his goal tally will not increase.

Lewandowski and Suarez have also had the best goal-scoring seasons. At age 28, Suarez scored 54 goals and, at age 30, Lewandowski scored 55 goals. 

Benzema’s best scoring season was when he was 33, scoring 44 goals. 

Ibrahimovic’s best season was at 37 years of age with 40 goals. It should be noted that this was when he was playing in Major League Soccer (MLS), where the standard was far lower than any top European league.

It’s also important to consider the number of minutes each striker played. This is because aggregate goals ignore the fact that some players played more than others. By accounting for minutes, we will create a more accurate picture of how prolific each striker was.

Again, Lewandowski ranks the highest in the list with 105 minutes per goal. Despite being the oldest of the four, Ibrahimovic played the least amount of minutes in his career, but he ranks second with 119.5 minutes per goal. 

Suarez drops to third with 134.1 minutes per goal, and Benzema is last with 137.5 minutes per goal.

But, context is important. 

Firstly, Ibrahimovic spent the majority of his career playing in the Seria A. According to WhoScored’s data, the Italian league has the lowest Goals per Game when compared with La Liga, the Premier League and the Bundesliga. This could reinforce a commonly held belief that Seria A is the strongest defensively, meaning that Ibrahimovic played the majority of his career in a league that is the toughest to score in.

Equally, Lewandowski racked up most of his goals in the Bundesliga. Anecdotally speaking, the German league is the worst of the four leagues and the Polish striker played for the most dominant team in the competition, Bayern Munich. The same data by WhoScored also shows that the Bundesliga has the most Goals per Game. This isn’t to suggest that Lewandowski had an easy ride, but it could help to explain why his Minutes per Goal were far better than the rest.

But, a red mark against Ibrahimovic’s name is that he played the least amount of 90s (full games) by far of any player on this list, averaging just 21.62 (removing his last season when he was 40 years old), compared to Suarez’s 33 and Lewandowski’s 38. 

This implies that Ibrahimovic was regularly benched or that he suffered the most amount of injuries - both of which go against him when considering who was the best striker. 

Assists

While a striker’s main objective is to score goals, the best are also good at creating chances for their team. 

Again, the data is limited by the fact that it’s almost impossible to account for the quality of the team and opposition. But assists help quantify the strikers' impact on their team’s creativity and possession play. 

The below table shows the striker’s assists for their club at each age.

Interestingly, Lewandowski is at the bottom of the list when it comes to assists with 104. He also has the worst Minutes per Assist (M/A) with 514 minutes for every assist - that’s roughly one assist for every 5.7 games.

On the other end of the spectrum, Suarez is the front-runner with 195 assists for his club which is far from surprising given his role in build-up play. He is also well ahead of the others with 289 M/A, which is roughly an assist every 3.2 games.

Benzema comes second with 157 assists across his career.

It’s not surprising that Suarez and Benzema top the list for assists. During their peak, they both played with the most prolific players in history, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Not only did it mean that the chances they created would be converted, but it also meant that they were both expected to play supporting roles rather than act as the main target man which would have been the case for Lewandowski.

Ibrahimovic comes third with assists (136) but finishes second with M/A with 344 minutes per assist. 

The data suggests that Suarez was the most creative player of the four. As well as netting the second most goals of those analysed, the Uruguayan was the most important when it came to creating goals. It’s fair to say he was the most well-rounded striker when it came to output at club level.

Lewandowski is a slightly more extreme case. He is the most prolific striker of the four by some distance, but he played a much lesser role with team build-up play. 

Ibrahimovic is less impressive with aggregate numbers, but he’s consistent when it comes to minutes per goal or assist. So, when he played, he was regularly scoring or assisting his teammates. That said, he played far fewer minutes than the other strikers which was a result of a significant number of injuries. Transfermarkt estimates he missed out on around 196 games as a result of injury or illness. 

Although, in some cases, injuries can be out of a player’s control, it must be considered when discussing how important a player is to his team’s success. 

Lastly, Benzema, the only player on the list to officially win the Ballon d’Or (the award for the best player in the world), didn’t rank highly in either category. He spent much of his peak career playing second-fiddle to Cristiano Ronaldo which has hindered his output compared to the rest.

There’s no doubt that his numbers are still phenomenal and he’s one of the most decorated footballers of all time, but it’s difficult to argue that he was a better goal scorer than Lewandowski or that he was more creative than Suarez. 

So, now we have some idea of each player’s output, but there are still lots of blurred lines. It’s worth breaking this down even further, starting with European Cup output.

Category 1 ranking:

• Luis Suarez - 4 points

• Robert Lewandowski - 3 points

• Zlatan Ibrahimovic - 2 points

• Karim Benzema - 1 point

European and international club competitions

Next, we analyse each striker’s performance in European and International club competitions. This includes the UEFA Cup, UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Super Cup.

By breaking the analysis down in this way, we remove the bias of league strength and opposition. 

While it’s not a perfect proxy, it does give us an overview of how well they performed against the best clubs in Europe and internationally. 

For ease, we’ve looked at goals and assists (G+As) - or, goal involvements - together in this analysis.

The below graph shows the aggregate goal involvement each striker had in these competitions.

This data could show a skewed view of who’s produced the most output in European and international club competitions due to the hugely variant game time they’ve had.

When we look at the aggregate number of goal involvements, we can conclude that Benzema (121 G+As) and Lewandowski (117 G+As) were far more involved than Ibrahimovic (82 G+As) and Suarez (61 G+As) in European and international club competitions. 

Even when we account for the minutes each player has played in these tournaments, we get a similar result.

Some claim that Lewandowski racked up the most goals because he played in the weakest league. Yet, the Polishman still tops the list for European and international club competition output.

In Benzema’s defence, he only scored three penalty kicks in these competitions compared to Lewandowski’s 17 as he wasn’t Real Madrid’s main penalty taker.

Ibrahimovic fares the worst in these competitions. He had the second most minutes played but only achieved the third-best output, making his minutes per G+A the worst of the four strikers we’ve analysed. 

His output was still fantastic but just not as good as the others. 

The data suggests that Lewandowksi performs just as well in European and international competitions as he does in his domestic league. This mutes the argument that he only achieved his output because he played in a ‘weaker’ and less defensively strong league.

Category 2 ranking:

• Karim Benzema - 4 points

• Robert Lewandowski - 3 points

• Zlatan Ibrahimovic - 2 point

• Luis Suarez - 1 points

International performances

Now it’s important to see how each striker performed on the international stage. 

Similar to the previous section, we’re analysing their goals and assists for their national side. 

Yet again, Lewandowski leads the way in goal involvement with 83 for Poland. Suarez is second with 53 for Uruguay, followed by Ibrahimovic with 34 for Sweden and Benzema with 33 for France. 

Even when we account for minutes per goal involvement, the rankings remain the same. 

The below chart shows the minutes per goal involvement for each striker.

Lewandowski has played the most minutes (8468) at the international level and has the best goal involvement per minute of those analysed, achieving a goal or assist every 102 minutes. 

Suarez is not far behind Lewandowski with a goal or assist every 121.5 minutes for Uruguay. 

Benzema ranks third with a goal or assist every 142.6 minutes for France. This is understandable given he missed out on playing for the French national side during his peak as he was left out of the squad by manager Didier Deschamps due to a scandal. 

Ibrahimovic is perhaps the most surprising. Everyone remembers his iconic moments in a Sweden jersey - the game against Portugal in the 2014 World Cup qualifier or the infamous bicycle kick versus England - but his goal involvements were the worst of all four strikers, by quite some distance.

We’ve avoided analysing their international trophies as we deem it not fit for purpose in this analysis.

Category 3 ranking:

• Robert Lewandowski - 4 points

• Luis Suarez - 3 points

• Karim Benzema - 2 points

• Zlatan Ibrahimovic - 1 point

Market value 

Another metric that we can look at is market value. It helps us understand how much contemporaries valued these strikers during their careers. 

It goes beyond the statistics that we’ve analysed above as a player’s market value will consider all aspects of their game. 

One thing to consider here is inflation. Players' prices have dramatically risen over time so Ibrahimovic, whose peak was earlier the others, will have a lower market value despite how he was valued. This will be considered in the final analysis.

So, using Transfermarket, let’s look at each player’s market value in €. 

With regards to market value, Surarez tops the list with a €90 million value in 2015. During that season, he scored 40 goals in La Liga, won the Champions League, won the Spanish Cup and won the FIFA Club World Cup. It’s fair to say he was at his peak and his market value for the time reflects this.

Ibrahimovic reached a respectable €46 million market value peak in 2010, but his value declined rapidly after his time at Barcelona. 

Lewandowski impresses here again. His market didn’t exceed Suarez’s peak, but he maintained the highest market value over the longest period, a testament to his consistency. 

Similarly, while Benzema doesn’t reach the same peak as his counterparts, he does maintain a relatively high market value for a long period. 

What’s more, Benzema is the only player on the list to have won the Ballon d’Or (although, controversially, Lewandowski missed his opportunity to win the award in the 2021 ceremony as it was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic), which suggests he was highly regarded by contemporaries.

Category 4 ranking:

• Luis Suarez - 4 points

• Robert Lewandowski - 3 points

• Karim Benzema - 2 points

• Zlatan Ibrahimovic - 1 point

Verdict

Each striker we’ve analysed has been world-class at some point in their career. 

But, we wanted to know who was the best of the four. 

There’s no denying that this approach is far from perfect, but it provides a barometer for determining who is the best striker between 2010-2020. 

So, the best striker is… drum-roll… 

Robert Lewandowski with 13 points out of a total of 16.

When it comes to goals, no other striker we’ve analysed comes close to the level of output that Lewandowski has achieved in his career.

While his biggest criticism is that he played for the most dominant team in a weaker league, he’s proven both on the international and European club stage that he can reach unbelievable numbers.

Here’s the rest of the rankings based on the Route One analysis: 

To some, Ibrahimovic being at the bottom of the list will come as a surprise. He ranks the lowest on the list because he played the least amount of minutes of the four (despite being the oldest) and has the worst output per minute played in almost every category.

He produced magical moments but when analysing each striker’s career, he’s no match for the other three.

Of course, at the end of the day, this is all subjective. There are plenty of football fans that consider Benzema, Suarez or Zlatan as the best striker. 

But, different opinions are all part of the game.