Who Holds The Most Records in Football?

People and players have an anonymous craze for football. Players put their every possible effort to break records in football. Talking about records, there are countless football records from goals to best player. There’s no player in the Association Football who has not won a single title or Football record. While the universal legends like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are one of those footballers who have probably won every possible title or award in football. 

After considering all the possibilities regarding records, the question remains constant: who holds the most records in football? In this article, we have compiled a long list of players who have the most records in football including for most goals, most appearances, etc. Although most of the players have retired from the game, some of them are still actively working hard to add to their achievements list. 

Records for goals and goalscoring

Goals in football might have the same definition but records for goals and goalscoring are in unlimited quantity. So let’s start with the record for most goals. 

• Record for most goals: Born in Brazil, Rogerio Ceni holds the record for being the highest goal scoring goalkeeper of all time. In his goalkeeping career of 25 years, the Brazilian star scored 131 goals in 1266 appearances. 
• World’s all-time goalscorer: The unprecedented United forward Cristiano Ronaldo is widely famous as one of the greatest goalscorers of all time. With a total of 821 goals, Ronaldo has topped the list to become the highest scoring goalscorer of all time.
• International goalscorer of all time: Born in Canada, Christine Sinclair might not compete with Ronaldo in career goals but he definitely beats everyone when it comes to International goals. He holds the record for most international goals with 190 goals in 317 games.
• Most International goals for an amateur team: Vivian Woodward, the English player is known for recording most International goals for an amateur team. In his career of 8 years (1906-1914), Woodward earned 57 goals for the England National amateur football team. 
• Youngest International goalscorer: There is definitely no lack of categories in International goalscoring records itself. And the player to strike the world as the youngest International goalscorer is Myanmar born Aung Kyaw Tun who scored for Myanmar in the 2000 AFF Championship match against Thailand on November 6, 2000 at the age of 14 years. 
• Record for most goals for a single club: The Argentina captain and the undisputed megastar Lionel Messi has made a record for scoring most goals for a single club. Messi spent most of his career playing for Barcelona scoring 672 goals in 778 games and achieved this record. 
• Most goals in a single International match: The Australian footballer Archie Thompson recorded 13 goals in the Australia 31-0 American Samoa on April 11, 2001 and broke the record for most goals scored in an international match. He made this record during the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification. 
• Most goals in a league match: Yanick Manzizila who is known for his record for most goals in a league match, hails from Democratic Republic of the Congo. Manzizila scored 21 goals in the match Kongo United 30-0 for the Swedish Seventh level.
• Most goals in a domestic cup match: The French Footballer cum magician Stefan Dembicki had a prolific domestic cup match which eventually led him to the record for most goals in a domestic cup match. Dembicki scored 16 goals in the RC Lens-Auby Asturies match (32-0) in the preliminary round of the 1942-43 French Cup.
• Most goals in a calendar year: A calendar year is defined as the scheduled football year for which every event is pre scheduled. It has a certain number of matches or tournaments. Following this, Godfrey Chitalu in 1972 scored 109 goals in 50 games for club Kabwe Warriors and country. He set his record in just 309 days. 
• Most penalty kicks scored: Cristiano Ronaldo, the only player to have two goal scoring records to his name. He has scored a total of 143 penalties out of 175 penalties played since he kicked off his career in 2002.

Appearances Records

• Most appearances as captain for a single club: Interestingly, the Brazilian megastar Rogerio Ceni haspre than one records to his name making this his second. He made 978 appearances as captain of Sao Paulo during the course of 15 years (2001-15). 
• Most appearances for one club: Again Rogerio Ceni comes to focus after playing most games for a single club although Messi scored most goals with one. During his career (1992-2015), Ceni has played a total of 1237 games with Sao Paulo making him set the record.
• Most official games in history: You would be surprised to know that there is someone who has played more official games than Ceni. Yes, the English player Peter Shilton played 1390 official games over 31 seasons in his entire career. 
• Most club competition appearances in history: The player to have played in most club competition in football history is Iker Casillas who is a Spanish footballer. During his entire career of twenty years (1999-2019), he recorded a total of 192 appearances: 188 in UEFA club competitions, 2 in FIFA club World Cup and 2 in Intercontinental Cup. 
• Most International Caps in history: Kristine Lilly, a United States women’s player has set the record for winning most caps. In her career of 23 years, Lilly won 354 caps to her name.
• Youngest footballer to play at senior level: It’s quite interesting to see how contrasting this record seems as the youngest player has to be selected for senior level. But the infamous but incredible Liberian star Eric godpower Marshall holds the record for being the youngest player to play at senior level. Marshall debuted on April 7, 2021 for Garou FC with the victory match against FC Haifa in Liberia’s fourth division. 
• Youngest soccer player to debut in first division: The Bolivian player Mauricio Baldiveiso became the youngest player to play in first division on July 19, 2009 after making debut as a substitute in the Bolivian first division at the age of 12 only. He played for Club Aurora in an away match against La Paz FC. 
• Oldest soccer player: Belonging to Japan, Kazuyoshi Miura has made the record for being oldest professional soccer player as he continues his Football journey that he kicked off in 1986. Despite being 55 years old, the Japanese striker keeps playing for Suzuka Point Getters. 
• Guinness World record for Oldest footballer: According to Guinness World records, Ezzeldin Bahader became the oldest Footballer to play football on October 6, 2020 at the age of 74. The Egyptian player featured in his team’s match against El Ayat Sports in the Egyptian third division. 

Who has the most records in football?

Though Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo are leading in football records, it’s hard to tell who has the highest number of football records in history. This is why we have accumulated all the records and their holders along with the frequency. In the lists below, you will also find the player with the most records although you might not be able to figure out a certain answer due to excessive compatibility and competition.

• Record for most decorated player: Dani Alves, one of the other greatest Brazilian Footballers is regarded as the most decorated player with a total of 43 titles. Starting his career in 2001, Alves won 43 football titles till now which is the highest number. 
• Record for winning most league titles: we told you about the player to have appeared in most league competitions but here is the turn of the one with most league titles. This record has been made by Roar Strand, the Norwegian player who won most (16) Norwegian league titles, all with Rosenborg BK. (1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2010)
• Player who won most World Cup titles: The German giant Toni Kroos who played from 2013 to 2018 winning six world titles including 1 FIFA World Cup title (2014) and 5 FIFA Club World Cup titles (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018)
• Goalkeeper to save most penalties: You must have heard a lot of names which are popular for scoring most penalties but we are here with an exceptionally brilliant player Lev Yashin who holds the record for saving most penalties as a goalkeeper. The Soviet Union goalkeeper (1950-70) set a world record for saving over 150 penalties for Dynamo Moscow as well as the Soviet union. 
• Player with most clean sheets: Again, the Soviet Union goalkeeper is also known to have the most number of clean sheets as he played 270 matches without scoring a single goal. 
• Record for playing most consecutive minutes without netting one goal: Brazilians are universally known for their ability to kill in football and Mazaropi proposes another example by winning this record. He spent 1816 minutes playing without netting a single goal. 
• Record for most red cards: It doesn’t matter if the record is negative or positive, whatever thing makes a player different every other person becomes significant. Same thing happened with Gerardo Bedoya who is popular for getting the Highest number of red cards in football (46).
• Longest distance goal scored: Tom King, a professional player from Wales scored the longest goal. The Wales goalkeeper King scored own six yard box, a distance of 96.01 metres for Newport County in a draw match against Cheltenham Town on January 21, 2021. 
• Player to play in most divisions with one club: The English Professional soccer player Nathan Pond is known to play in most divisions with one club. He set the record after playing for Fleetwood Town in seven divisions: North West Counties League, Northern Premier League Premier division, Conference Premier, Conference North, Football League 1, Football League 2 and Northern Premier League division 1 North. 

Coaches with best Football records