IFFHS WORLD'S ALL TIME GREATEST DYNASTIES
Picture : Harald, Patrick, Orjan, Runar and Arild BERG (Norway)
The World’s All-Time Greatest Dynasties: Ranking at Jan 9, 2021
On Jan 6, the famous Italian football family Maldini reached the mark of 1000 games held together in top division for same club (Milan). The youngest member of dynasty Daniel has added his (so far) modest contribution to cumulative tally (6 games). It was just an amount needed for the historical milestone.
Daniel, Paolo and Cesare Maldini
Maldini’s achievement is unprecedented in world football history if to count the one-club performances. But considering the club careers overall, we can find other dynasties which compete with Maldini and even outnumber below.
In the table below, we gathered all-time dynasties in world football which contain at least three generations of players with only direct relationships: father – son(s) – grandson(s) etc.
Another condition for a dynasty to be included in the list: at least one member in each of 3 generations must have games in national top division(s). The number of top-division games is just the basic criteria for this ranking.
Maldini’s total number of top-division games is currently 1066 (including the games played by Cesare Maldini for Triestina and Torino). It is only third result in the world history. One Norwegian (Berg) and one Danish (Laudrup) dynasties have bigger numbers – though each of them have 5 members in total.
Some explanations for the table below. The members of a dynasty are separated in columns generation-wise. A digit in brackets means an index of generation. (1) is given to oldest member (founder of dynasty). The ones with (2) are sons for him, (3) grandsons, (4) great-grandsons (always direct relationships).
The letters next to a digit in brackets (a,b,c) are used in case of several members in a generation. The brothers are marked age-wise alphabetically. Also, a letter can indicate kinship.
For example, in Berg dynasty, Patrick’s index (3a) indicates that he is son of Ørjan (2a).
Michael and Bryan Laudrup
In Laudrup dynasty, Mads (3aa) and Andreas (3ab) are sons of Michael (2a).
Most of dynasties have continuous chain of generations (1-2-3) but in two cases one of links is missing: “Seeler” and “Guðmundsson” dynasties (1-2-4 sequence).
The players in bold are currently active.
On the right of a player, the total number of top-division games in the career. The last numerical column (bold) is total amount of games of whole dynasty.
The nationalities of players are in the right column. In several cases, the members of a dynasty represented different countries.
ALL TIME WORLD RANKING GREATEST DYNASTIES
| 1 | Harald Berg (1) | 258 | Ørjan Berg (2a) | 317 | Patrick Berg (3a) | 94 | 1153 | Norway |
| Runar Berg (2b) | 374 | |||||||
| Arild Berg (2c) | 110 | |||||||
| 2 | Finn Laudrup (1) | 172 | Michael Laudrup (2a) | 466 | Mads Laudrup (3aa) | 29 | 1092 | Denmark |
| Brian Laudrup (2b) | 342 | Andreas Laudrup (3ab) | 83 | |||||
| 3 | Cesare Maldini (1) | 412 | Paolo Maldini (2) | 648 | Daniel Maldini (3) | 6 | 1066 | Italy |
| 4 | Erwin Seeler (1) | 15 | Dieter Seeler (2a) | 318 | Levin Öztunalı (4b) | 161 | 1014 | Germany |
| Uwe Seeler (2b) | 520 | |||||||
| 5 | Tony Hateley (1) | 230 | Mark Hateley (2) | 426 | Tom Hateley (3) | 341 | 997 | England |
| 6 | Arnór Guðjohnsen (1) | 453 | Eiður Guðjohnsen (2a) | 424 | Sveinn Aron Guðjohnsen (3a) | 40 | 934 | Iceland |
| Arnór Borg Guðjohnsen (2b) | 17 | |||||||
| 7 | Patsy Gallacher (1) | 563 | Willie Gallacher (2a) | 33 | Brian Gallacher (3b) | 132 | 918 | N.Ireland/Ireland (1), Scotland (2a,2b,3b) |
| Tommy Gallacher (2b) | 190 | |||||||
| 8 | Kenneth Kluivert (1) | 345 | Patrick Kluivert (2) | 343 | Justin Kluivert (3) | 103 | 791 | Surinam (1), Netherlands (2,3) |
| 9 | Marquitos (1) | 224 | Marcos Alonso I (2) | 302 | Marcos Alonso II (3) | 200 | 726 | Spain |
| 10 | Viktor Shustikov (1) | 427 | Sergey Shustikov I (2) | 297 | Sergey Shustikov II (3) | 1 | 725 | USSR (1,2), Russia (2,3) |
| 11 | Vladimír Weiss I (1) | 238 | Vladimír Weiss II (2) | 258 | Vladimír Weiss III (3) | 217 | 713 | Czechoslovakia (1,2), Slovakia (2,3) |
| 12 | Pál Dárdai I (1) | 309 | Pál Dárdai II (2) | 376 | Palkó Dárdai (3a) | 9 | 709 | Hungary (1,2), Germany (3a,3b) |
| Márton Dárdai (3b) | 15 | |||||||
| 13 | Oscar Garré (1) | 588 | Ezequiel Garré (2a) | 52 | Benjamín Garré (3b) | 8 | 707 | Argentina |
| Emiliano Garré (2b) | 59 | |||||||
| 14 | Herbert Burdenski (1) | 89 | Dieter Burdenski (2) | 482 | Fabian Burdenski (3) | 15 | 586 | Germany |
| 15 | David Chalmers (1) | 112 | Stevie Chalmers (2) | 339 | Paul Chalmers (3) | 104 | 555 | Scotland |
| 16 | Mustafa Altıntaş (1) | 11 | Yaşar Altıntaş (2a) | 181 | Batuhan Altıntaş (3b) | 29 | 546 | Turkey |
| Yusuf Altıntaş (2b) | 325 | |||||||
| 17 | George Summerbee (1) | 3 | Mike Summerbee (2) | 354 | Nicky Summerbee (3) | 107 | 464 | England |
| 18 | Wim van der Gaag (1) | ? | Mitchell van der Gaag (2) | 431 | Jordan van der Gaag (3) | 2 | 433+ | Netherlands |
| 19 | Salvinu Schembri (1) | ? | Eric Schembri (2) | ? | André Schembri (3) | 373 | 373+ | Malta |
| 20 | Albert Guðmundsson I (1) | 125 | Ingi Björn Albertsson (2) | 196 | Albert Guðmundsson II (4) | 45 | 366 | Iceland |
| 21 | Ahmad Wartam (1) | ? | Fandi Ahmad (2) | 221 | Irfan Fandi (3a) | 89 | 356+ | Singapore |
| Ikhsan Fandi (3b) | 34 | |||||||
| Ilhan Fandi (3c) | 12 |