Another record for Cristiano Ronaldo! With his 200th selection for Portugal, the legendary No. 7 is now the most capped player in the national team. Just before the match against Iceland, where he scored the only goal of the match, CR7 received a traditional Guinness World Record certificate, enough to fill an already well-stocked trophy cabinet.
Even if he no longer plays in Europe and no longer has the chance to play in the legendary Champions League, which he won 5 times, Cristiano Ronaldo continues to break records. He has been playing for the Saudi Al-Nasr Football Club since January 2023, after a mixed season with his return to Manchester United, Lusitano’s Ballon d’Or five times achieved a new achievement in the national team on Tuesday, June 20, 2023, during a match against Iceland in the 2024 European Championship qualifiers.
Away from the competitions of the old continent, Cristiano Ronaldo is not yet ready to exit the national team. Always ambitious and eager to push his country to the top, the Portuguese captain has only one goal: to repeat the Euro 2016 feat, once again lifting the trophy for his country. While Portugal could have gone into a complicated match against Iceland, Ronaldo once again saved his team by scoring in stoppage time, just a few minutes from the end of the match.
200 national selections: a historic record
We know this very well: all good things come to an end and even the sport’s greatest legends are not eternal. Unfortunately, the end of his career is fast approaching for CR7, and Euro 2024, assuming Portugal qualify (which is a good start at the moment), should be the captain’s last competition. He chooses. In that 200th selection against Iceland, the former striker was awarded an unusual prize: a certificate from Guinness World Records. With 200 selections on the clock, the Portuguese, who does not intend to stop because Portugal still has 6 matches to play in these Euro qualifiers, before he hypothetically joins the tournament in 2024, is the most capped player in the history of football.
Therefore, he is ahead of Badr Al-Mutawa, who has 196 international matches with the Kuwait national team, as well as Suh Chin An, who has 195 international matches with Malaysia. However, at the European level we can mention two more honorable mentions: the Spaniard Sergio Ramos, with 179 selections with Roja, And the eternal Gianluigi Buffon, called up 176 times to defend the colors of Italy. As a reminder, along with the Blues, Hugo Lloris, the former captain and goalkeeper of the French team, is to date the most capped player in the history of the tricolor selection. During the Qatar World Cup 2022, Nekoa and the current goalkeeper of Tottenham, in the round of 16 between France and Poland, equaled Lilian Thuram’s record, with 142 selections. After three matches, Lloris has 145 picks, still far ahead of former teammates Olivier Giroud (124 picks) and Antoine Griezmann (121 picks).
