Vlookup problem

I have a data sheet that contains a list of footballers (soccer) names (i4:i35). Each time they score a goal i enter a 1 by the side of there name, then a 2 when they get a second etc. In a second data sheet i use data validation to allow people to choose anyone of these players eg ab4= the list of players. When a player scores i want their number of goals to appear in this second sheet eg in ac4, but obviously this depends on which player has been chosen from the list in ab4. I have tried using if statements within if statements but you can only have a maximum of 7 'ifs' eg =if(ab4="john",$j$4,if(ab4="dan",$j$5,if(ab4="ron" ,$j$6,0))). I have tried using Vlookup by doing =VLOOKUP(AB4,i4:i35,2) where the goals scored are my second column and when i choose the first person in the list in ab4 the value that is returned in ac4 is 0 when it should be 1 since this is what i entered in j4, please help!!!