IFFHS EURO STATISTICS 28 - LONGEST SPAN OF GAMES
Picture : Lothar Matthaus played the EURO during more than 20 years !
Longest span of games (only finals): Lothar Matthäus
Among Euro records, still possessed by Lothar Matthäus, there is one which regards to longest interval between the first and last appearances in Euro final tournaments. The German legend debutted at Euro in 1980 and said goodbye in 2000, so his career in this competition lasted 20 years and 6 days. He is still the only one in the history who spanned 6 final tournaments of Euro (though missing two in between, 1992 and 1996).
This record will very unlikely be matched the upcoming summer as in the current squads of 24 finalists there are no players participating in Euro 2000. However, there is only one who played on Euro 2004, Cristiano Ronaldo. he will probably take 2nd position straight after Matthäus with 17-year span (due to pandemic-caused longer gap between two consecutive final tournaments).
| LONGEST SPAN OF | GAMES (ONLY | FINALS) | |||
| Player | Country | Span (Y-D) | First game | Last game | |
| 1 | Lothar Matthäus | Germany | 20-006 | 14/06/1980 Netherlands (3:2) | 20/06/2000 Portugal (0:3) |
| 2 | Dragan Stojković | Yugoslavia | 16-012 | 13/06/1984 Belgium (0:2) | 25/06/2000 Netherlands (1:6) |
| 3 | Gheorghe Hagi | Romania | 16-010 | 14/06/1984 Spain (1:1) | 24/06/2000 Italy (0:2) |
| 4 | Tomáš Rosický | Czech Republic | 16-006 | 11/06/2000 Netherlands (0:1) | 17/06/2016 Croatia (2:2) |