SSFA OnlineSoccer Stats For Africa

Data & Methodology

How SSFA Online builds its database, and the limits you should know about.

Sources

  • Wikidata (CC0): player identities, birth dates and places, citizenships, positions, height, club and national-team spells with appearances and goals, coaches, clubs, leagues and stadiums. We query every footballer who holds the citizenship of an African country or has played for any African national team.
  • International results 1872–today by Mart Jürisoo (CC0): every senior men's international with score, venue and competition, goalscorers with minute, and penalty shoot-outs.
  • Wikimedia Commons: player and stadium photos, shown with author and licence.
  • World Bank Open Data and GeoNames (CC BY 4.0): population, GDP and regional context for countries and birthplaces.
  • OpenStreetMap (ODbL): additional stadiums and capacities.
  • ClubElo: club strength ratings for European clubs.
  • StatsBomb open data: event-level statistics (xG, shots, key passes) for selected tournaments.
  • football-data.org: current squad lists for major European leagues, where available.
  • RSS feeds (BBC Sport and Google News): headlines and links only, never full articles.

How we connect the data

Goals in the results database are matched to player profiles by normalised name within the scoring team's nation, using birth years to separate namesakes; unmatched goals still count in team and tournament records. A player's “nation” is the African country whose senior team he or she most recently represented, or otherwise an African citizenship on record.

Elo ratings

We compute Elo ratings from all 12017+ African matches and every other international since 1872, following the widely used World Football Elo method: match importance (K = 60 for World Cup finals, 50 for continental finals, 40 for qualifiers, 30 for other tournaments, 20 for friendlies), a goal-difference multiplier and a 100-point home advantage. See how Elo ratings work.

Quality thresholds

We only publish a player page when there is enough verified information to be useful (for example a birth date, birthplace and club career), and pages with less data are kept out of search engines. List pages need at least three players; head-to-head pages need at least two matches.

Known limitations

  • Goalscorer data is near-complete for major tournaments and qualifiers but partial for many friendlies.
  • Club appearance figures are usually league-only and can lag behind the current season.
  • “League” pages use each club's current league, so a spell may have happened while the club was in another division.
  • Season lists are inferred from the years of each spell; mid-season moves may be missed.

Updates

Results, Elo ratings and headlines refresh daily; the full player database refreshes weekly. Last data update: 2026-10-19.

Last updated: 2026-10-19