Top-50 Football Players - September 2013 edition

I used the August to update my database. It now contains about 30% more players than previously. Most of the new players are either from the 80ties (finally my Serie A data starts much earlier) or in weaker leagues, so the Top-50 list didn't change dramatically from the last one published back in June. As always the list contains only players below the age of 30.

Rank	Player	Goalimpact	Team	Nationality	Previous Rank	GI Diff
1	Cristiano Ronaldo	197,0	Real Madrid	Portugal	1	+2,6
2	Lionel Messi	190,8	FC Barcelona	Argentinien	2	+1,4
3	Philipp Lahm	187,8	Bayern München	Deutschland	3	-1,0
4	Bastian Schweinsteiger	187,1	Bayern München	Deutschland	4	+1,9
5	Cesc Fabregas	177,6	FC Barcelona	Spanien	5	+4,5
6	Busquets	173,8	FC Barcelona	Spanien	7	+3,8
7	Iniesta	171,4	FC Barcelona	Spanien	6	+1,3
8	Mesut Özil	171,3	Arsenal FC	Deutschland	9	+2,9
9	Thomas Müller	170,8	Bayern München	Deutschland	10	+3,8
10	Wayne Rooney	168,6	Manchester United	England	8	-1,3
11	Manuel Neuer	167,9	Bayern München	Deutschland	13	+3,7
12	Javier Mascherano	167,9	FC Barcelona	Argentinien	16	+5,6
13	Pique	167,2	FC Barcelona	Spanien	14	+4,3
14	Pedro	166,5	FC Barcelona	Spanien	15	+3,8
15	Arjen Robben	166,3	Bayern München	Niederlande	11	+0,2
16	Sergio Ramos	164,5	Real Madrid	Spanien	12	-0,0
17	Marcelo	163,7	Real Madrid	Brasilien	18	+3,8
18	Karim Benzema	162,0	Real Madrid	Frankreich	17	+1,1
19	Gael Clichy	158,0	Manchester City	Frankreich	19	+0,1
20	Salomon Kalou	153,2	Lille OSC	Elfenbeinküste	20	-0,6
21	Mario Gomez	152,1	ACF Fiorentina	Deutschland	21	+0,2
22	Thiago	151,6	Bayern München	Spanien	27	+3,5
23	Neven Subotic	151,6	Borussia Dortmund	Serbien	37	+5,6
24	Gonzalo Higuain	150,7	SSC Napoli	Argentinien	22	-0,4
25	Per Mertesacker	150,6	Arsenal FC	Deutschland	25	+0,5
26	Gregory van der Wiel	150,5	Paris Saint-Germain	Niederlande	23	-0,1
27	Angel Di Maria	149,9	Real Madrid	Argentinien	26	+1,3
28	Mats Hummels	149,2	Borussia Dortmund	Deutschland	53	+6,4
29	Luiz Gustavo	148,8	VfL Wolfsburg	Brasilien	42	+3,7
30	Nani	148,8	Manchester United	Portugal	24	-1,4
31	Johnny Heitinga	148,5	Everton FC	Niederlande	31	+1,8
32	Andriy Pyatov	148,3	Shakhtar Donetsk	Ukraine	30	+1,3
33	Toni Kroos	148,0	Bayern München	Deutschland	36	+2,1
34	Joao Moutinho	147,7	FC Porto	Portugal	28	+0,3
35	Wesley Sneijder	147,6	Galatasaray	Niederlande	40	+2,4
36	Mario Götze	147,5	Bayern München	Deutschland	52	+4,5
37	Holger Badstuber	147,5	Bayern München	Deutschland	33	+1,0
38	Jerome Boateng	147,5	Bayern München	Deutschland	34	+1,0
39	Sami Khedira	146,9	Real Madrid	Deutschland	35	+0,9
40	Robert Lewandowski	146,7	Borussia Dortmund	Polen	44	+1,9
41	Toby Alderweireld	146,5	AFC Ajax	Belgien	32	-0,2
42	Siem de Jong	146,4	AFC Ajax	Niederlande	39	+1,1
43	Marcel Schmelzer	146,0	Borussia Dortmund	Deutschland	41	+0,9
44	Nigel de Jong	145,9	AC Milan	Niederlande	48	+2,2
45	Isaac Cuenca	145,4	FC Barcelona	Spanien	58	+4,4
46	Urby Emanuelson	145,1	AC Milan	Niederlande	51	+1,9
47	Emmanuel Adebayor	145,0	Tottenham Hotspur	Togo	45	+0,3
48	Fernando	144,9	FC Porto	Brasilien	49	+1,2
49	Jan Vertonghen	144,7	Tottenham Hotspur	Belgien	38	-1,1
50	Guillaume Gillet	144,6	RSC Anderlecht	Belgien	56	+3,0

I marked all new entries yellow. Most notable are Mats Hummels that jumped straight to rank 28 by gaining 6.4 additional points. This is just the last gain in a long row of higher and higher ratings.

Also interesting is Guillaume Gillet, right back of RSC Anderlecht. He actually never played outside of Belgium and is almost certainly not on many people's list of top players. I never saw him playing and thus I don't know if he is good or not. His 72 goals and 41 assists in 361 games isn't bad given him being a defender and he plays for the national team. So I assume he is not all bad at least.