Record of assists was virtually not kept at all until the end of the 20th century, although reports of matches commonly described a player as having "made" one or more goals.
[1][4] Opta, a British sports analytics company and the official provider of Premier League statistics,[5][6] defines an assist as "The final touch from a teammate, which leads to the recipient of the ball scoring a goal".
[1][10] FIFA started officially keeping track of assists in World Cup tournaments at the 1994 edition.
[11] 1994 was also the first World Cup in which assists were used as a tie-breaker in determining the Golden Shoe award for top scorer.
[14] The league's Commission des Compétitions includes blocked shots as a subset of "decisive passes".
[16] For the 1998–99 La Liga season, SDI sold its Gecasport database to Spanish media, in which asistencias de gol were described as "passes which lead immediately to a shot and goal".
Some specialists consider that an assist has to be a deliberate action meaning that it does not include the situation when a ball randomly rebounded to a scoring striker.
Major League Soccer formerly awarded the MLS Golden Boot based on 2 points per goal scored and one per assist.