Ok, for the last time...
The assist statistics aren't official because neither UEFA nor FIFA have a rule what counts as an assist. For one of the previous world cups (2002?) FIFA came up with an experimental assist rule, but it was only for that world cup and it didn't catch on later.
That's why many different sources have different rules for assists. For example, until some years ago, the EPL (unofficially though) counted the assists and they even considered penalties as assists i.e the guy who won a penalty won an assist. Also, at that WC I mentioned above, an assist was counted if a player made a shoot, the goalkeeper saves and some other player scored from the rebound.
Lately, most sources (EPL official site, CL official site, ESPN etc.) are finding a mutual agreement over what counts as an assist, even though it's still not officially accepted by FIFA and UEFA. In this regard an assist is counted only if:
- The goalscorer receives the ball from a teammate, without an opposition player touching the ball in between and if the goalscorer scores from his first shot.
Nothing else is considered an assist.
I decided to accept this way of counting assists.