Wayne Rooney’s 50-goal haul is not that out of the ordinary

The long wait is over, and congratulations are due to Wayne Rooney on becoming the first English player to score a half-century of goals for his country.

Put like that, rather than in terms of beating Bobby Charlton’s long-standing record, it does not sound that enormous an achievement, does it? That is because, as milestones go, this one happens to be fairly unremarkable beyond British shores. Whisper it to those commentators who expressed the opinion that another humdrum night at Wembley had been redeemed by the sheer significance of Rooney’s late penalty against Switzerland, but the England captain was merely joining a list of players – 44 at the last count, with Rooney number 44 – to have reached or passed the 50 mark.

Without wishing to denigrate Rooney’s total in any way, much less deny him his rightful place at the top of the English goalscoring ranks, this was a record that was long overdue an overhaul. The prosaic truth of the matter, updating the history books and setting Rooney’s achievement in a global context, is that for decades the bar for becoming England’s leading goalscorer has been set relatively low.

Consider the facts. By the late 1950s, Hungary had not one but two players – Ferenc Puskas and Sandor Kocsis – with more than 70 international goals each. Kocsis finished with 75 – astonishing from just 68 games – while Puskas went on to play for Spain and ended with 84 goals from 89 games. The record number of international goals scored by a single player is over 100 – Ali Daei of Iran hit 109 in 149 games before retiring in 2006 – and Iraq, Japan and Kuwait boast players with more than 70 international goals.

Uneven standards

Fair enough, that probably says more about the uneven standards of Asian football than anything else, though there are around 30 countries represented in the scoring table above England (the exact number depends on whether you count all three incarnations of Germany as completely separate entities – if you do, then East, West and unified all have goalscorers with more than 50 goals) and most of the major nations feature.

Brazil, as might be expected, are in there three times – Pelé, Ronaldo, Romário – but so are Iraq. Gabriel Batistuta of Argentina, on 56, has just been overtaken by Zlatan Ibrahimovic of Sweden, 57 and still going strong, who now has Spain’s retired David Villa (59) in his sights.

There are some familiar names from closer to home in the listings too, so much so that Rooney is merely the 10th Premier League player to reach 50 international goals. Rooney is the only present Premier League player with 50 international goals, but nine others with the same distinction have operated at some point in the Premier League, some of them quite recently.

So celebrate Rooney’s achievement by all means, but let’s keep a sense of perspective. The question to be asked now, if Rooney ends up with around 125 England appearances and pushes the record out towards 60 or so goals, is whether is it going to take another half-century – of years – before someone comes along to break it. The answer is probably yes.

Games available

England are no good at tournaments any more, and ultimately that reduces the number of games available. You usually need to start young to have a really prolific career, and it also helps if the team’s attacking gameplan is built around you. That is not really happening at the moment for either Raheem Sterling or

Harry Kane

, England’s brightest attacking hopes for the future.

Kane was a substitute against Switzerland, Sterling subdued, though the possibility exists that England have not worked out a way to play to either player’s strengths. Guardian Service

Premier League 50+ International goals

Players past and present who have played in Premier League

1 Stern John (Trinidad and Tobago) 70 goals in 115 games

2 Robbie Keane (Republic of Ireland) 67 goals in 142 games

3 Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast) 65 goals in 104 games

4 Landon Donovan (USA) 57 goals in 157 games

5 Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon) 56 goals in 118 games

6 Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) 55 goals in 122 games

7 Jon Dahl Tomasson (Denmark) 52 goals in 112 games

8 Thierry Henry (France) 51 goals in 123 games

9 Hakan Sukur (Turkey) 51 goals in 112 games

10 Wayne Rooney (England) 50 goals in 107 games