Caps, Goals, Appearances and xG: Football Statistics Explained
What counts as a cap, why goal tallies differ between sources, and how expected goals (xG) work.
By the SSFA Online team · Updated 2026-10-19
Why do two websites show different goal totals for the same player? What exactly is a cap? And what does xG measure? A short guide to the numbers on this site.
Caps
A cap is an appearance for a country's senior national team in an official international “A” match, including friendlies between two FIFA members. Starting or coming off the bench both count. Youth internationals (under-17 to under-23) are counted separately, and matches against club sides or unofficial selections do not count.
International goals
Goal totals can differ between sources because of disputed own goals, matches not recognised as full internationals, or missing records from early decades. On our player pages, the headline caps and goals come from Wikidata, and the list of goals with dates and opponents comes from a match-by-match database that is most complete for tournaments and qualifiers.
Appearances and club goals
Club figures on Wikidata usually count league matches only, copied from player biographies. Cup and continental matches are often excluded, and figures for the current season may lag. Treat them as a reliable guide to a career rather than an exact count.
Expected goals (xG)
Expected goals estimate the probability that a shot becomes a goal, based on thousands of similar shots: distance, angle, body part, type of pass and defensive pressure. A penalty is worth about 0.76 xG, a header from the edge of the box closer to 0.03. Adding up a player's xG shows how many goals his chances were “worth”. Scoring more than one's xG suggests excellent finishing (or luck). We show xG for selected tournaments using StatsBomb's free open data.
Elo ratings and rankings
Elo ratings measure team strength from results, adjusted for opponent quality and match importance. Read how Elo ratings work.
Head-to-head records
Our head-to-head pages count a match decided on penalties as a draw, following the convention used by most statistical sources, while noting who won the shoot-out.