MOST GAMES IN XXI CENTURY

• Feb 26, 2025
• History Statistics

Players with Most Games in XXI Century: updated ranking after 2024

We update a ranking of most experienced players in the current century, as it stood after the year 2024. Cristiano Ronaldo leads it with 1255 games.
7 players have reached the mark of 1000 games; João Moutinho and Edin Džeko did it in 2024.
30 players have played 900+ games; 20 of them active (highlighted in bold).
We have also included further 12 players who are below 900 games in XXI but have amassed this mark adding the games played in XX century, with the condition that significant majority of their games were still held in XXI. Such players can be conditionally taken as “players of XXI century”.
Along with the main ranking (for XXI) we put also an extended parallel ranking Total where the mentioned category of players is included as well. 
This parallel ranking is led by Rogério Ceni (1225 games) while the 2nd placed Cristiano Ronaldo should surpass him pretty soon.

	MOST GAMES			XXI	CENTURY
	Player	XXI	XX	Total	Country	Career	DL	DC	ICC	NT
1	Cristiano Ronaldo	1255		1255	Portugal	2002-	710	104	224	217
2	Fábio	1215	3	1218	Brazil	2000-	973	113	129
3	Lionel Messi	1083		1083	Argentina	2004-	606	104	182	191
4	Luka Modrić	1074		1074	Croatia	2003-	638	78	174	184
5	Dani Alves	1056		1056	Brazil	2001-2023	626	132	172	126
6	João Moutinho	1037		1037	Portugal	2004-	616	120	155	146
7	Edin Džeko	1000		1000	Bosnia and H	2003-	644	70	147	139
8	Sergio Ramos	996		996	Spain	2004-	581	77	158	180
9	Luis Suárez	980		980	Uruguay	2005-	635	76	126	143
10	Iker Casillas	974	74	1048	Spain	1999-2019	585	57	171	161
11	Andrés Iniesta	962		962	Spain	2002-2024	576	103	152	131
12	Zlatan Ibrahimović	953	9	962	Sweden	1999-2023	607	72	152	122
13	Ivan Rakitić	952		952	Croatia	2005-	594	98	154	106
14	Alexis Sánchez	947		947	Chile	2005-	577	80	124	166
15	Jesús Navas	945		945	Spain	2003-2024	639	103	147	56
16	Yasuhito Endō	944	84	1028	Japan	1998-2023	606	120	66	152
17	Fernandinho	941	0	941	Brazil	2003-	632	82	174	53
18	Pepe Reina	940	6	946	Spain	2000-	659	53	192	36
19	Xavi	937	80	1017	Spain	1998-2019	536	95	174	132
20	Ángel Di María	937		937	Argentina	2005-	528	110	154	145
21	Karim Benzema	937		937	France	2004-	582	83	175	97
22	James Milner	935		935	England	2002-	637	101	136	61
23	Sergio Busquets	925		925	Spain	2008-	524	99	159	143
24	Robert Lewandowski	922		922	Poland	2006-	529	82	155	156
25	Hugo Lloris	917		917	France	2005-	616	40	116	145
26	Diego Souza	907		907	Brazil	2003-2023	708	100	92	7
27	Rogério Ceni	905	320	1225	Brazil	1993-2015	675	72	149	9
28	Thiago Silva	903		903	Brazil	2004-	569	94	127	113
29	Arturo Vidal	901		901	Chile	2005-	527	77	153	144
30	Paulo Da Silva	900	85	985	Paraguay	1996-2023	642	34	78	146
	Gianluigi Buffon	858	211	1069	Italy	1995-2013	528	37	133	160
	Javier Zanetti	717	350	1067	Argentina	1993-2014	449	50	128	90
	Raúl	688	346	1034	Spain	1994-2015	454	57	115	62
	Frank Lampard	841	168	1009	England	1995-2016	507	105	124	105
	Roque Santa Cruz	857	119	976	Paraguay	1997-	602	55	105	95
	Timmy Simons	845	99	944	Belgium	1998-2018	571	64	116	94
	Oswaldo Sánchez	670	269	939	Mexico	1993-2014	512	13	57	88
	Zé Roberto	708	228	936	Brazil	1994-2017	492	57	121	38
	Thierry Henry	655	262	917	France	1994-2012	422	39	96	98
	Petr Čech	889	20	909	Czech Republic	1999-2019	552	75	138	124
	Dirk Kuyt	816	87	903	Netherlands	1998-2017	553	60	99	104
	Essam El-Hadary	701	200	901	Egypt	1995-2019	411	48	107	135

All games at top senior level are counted:
Domestic leagues (DL) - top national and regional divisions, 
Domestic cups and other relevant competitions (DC), 
Official international club competitions (ICC), 
Official games between national team (NT).
Period: from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2024.