ILDEFONS LIMA BECAME THE FIRST IN HISTORY

• Jun 17, 2023
• History Statistics

Ildefons Lima set new age and span records

Andorran defender Ildefons Lima, having entered the pitch yesterday as a late substitute in the Euro 2024 qualifier vs Switzerland (1-2), set several world and European records.

*Lima became the first player in history to take part in 7 editions of the European Championship, including qualifications (from 1998 to 2024).

*Lima broke the record for oldest player in the history of the tournament (43 years 188 days), and he did it by almost 2 years at once. 
The previous record was set in March of this year by Gibraltar player Lee Casciaro (then 41 years 179 days, now he extended his rate to 41 years 260 days after yesterday’s appearance vs France).

*Lima became the first player in history to have performed for the national team during 25+ years. The gap between his first and last (at the moment) matches is 25 years 359 days. This is a new world record.
The old record held for over 100 years. It belonged to the legendary Welshman Billy Meredith, whose career in the national team spanned 24 years 365 days (he missed just 1 day to reach 25 years!)

Lima has played for Andorra for the first time since June 2022.
His compatriot Marc Pujol also shows a rare longevity. This year he climbed to the 3rd line of the historical rating with 23 years 50 days of experience in the national team. He was also called up for the June matches but sidelined in yesterday's game against Switzerland.
The rating of players with the longest experience in the national team does not include several of those who artificially increased it by participating in an exhibition or testimonial match many years after the end of their career (Weah, Koudas, Bashar Abdullah, Ivan Hurtado etc.).

	PLAYERS    WITH	LONGEST		CAREER	IN  NATIONAL	TEAM
	Player	Country	Span	First Game		Last Game
1	Ildefons Lima	Andorra	25-359	22/06/1997	Estonia 1-4	16/06/2023	France 0-3
2	Billy Meredith	Wales	24-365	16.03.1895	Ireland 2-2	15/03/1920	England 2-1
3	Marc Pujol	Andorra	23-050	06/02/2000	Albania 0-3	28/03/2023	Kosovo 1-1
4	Stanley Matthews	England	22-228	29/09/1934	Wales 4-0	15/05/1957	Denmark 4-1
5	Juli Sánchez	Andorra	22-210	13/11/1996	Estonia 1-6	11/06/2019	France 0-4
6	Pat Onstad	Canada	22-095	18/02/1988	Bermuda 0-0	24/05/2010	Argentina 0-5
7	Essam El-Hadary	Egypt	22-092	25/03/1996	South Korea 1-1	25/06/2018	Saudi Arabia 1-2
8	Hussein Abdulghani	Saudi Arabia	22-062	19/09/1996	Zambia 2-1	20/11/2018	Jordan 1-1
9	Pat Jennings	Northern Ireland	22-058	15/04/1964	Wales 3-2	12/06/1986	Brazil 0-3
10	Zlatan Ibrahimović	Sweden	22-052	31/01/2001	Faroe Islands 0-0	24/03/2022	Belgium 0-3