The list for the players with the most official appearances in the history of soccer stretches from players who played in the 1940s to the present day. Goalkeepers like Iker Casillas and Gianluigi Buffon have both entered the top 20, but there are still many players ahead of the two active legends.
According to Footballdatabase.eu, English goalkeeper Peter Shilton has accumulated the most official appearances with 1,390.
Manchester City's offense is on fire. In their last three Premier League matches, City beat Liverpool 5-0, Watford 6-0 and Crystal Palace 5-0. They've scored 21 goals in six league matches, good for 3.5 per match. The current EPL goal record is 103, held by the 2009-2010 Chelsea squad. Manchester City are on pace for 133 goals this season.
Gareth Bale has done it again. Perhaps best known for his stunning sprint against Barcelona in the 2014 Copa del Rey Final (one that had Usain Bolt saying: “It’s a goal any sprinter in the world would like to score one day. He’s the fastest footballer in the world at the moment.”), Bale has scored another scorching effort for Real Madrid.
You know a dirty game when you see one. Players go flying into tackles, things get chippy and the referee absolutely loses control of the match. Two or three red cards in a match is enough to make people cringe, but how about 36?
No, that’s not a typo — 36 red cards. In one game.
After flirting with relegation last season, Deportivo La Coruna were not expected to prove a very significant challenge for Real Madrid as they opened their La Liga campaign on Sunday, and the Estadio Riazor in Galicia proved to be a comfortable site to begin their title defense for Los Blancos.
There's perhaps no other refereeing decision, in any sport, that causes the deep emotional reaction of the awarding of a penalty kick. When the call is made for a spot kick from 12 yards out, the response is typically either a flurry of expletives and impending sense of doom or the feeling of utter joy derived from receiving a blessing, depending on which side of the call you are.
And it seems these feelings are warranted — stats show that there’s a 75-80% chance of the penalty being converted.
A Sebastian Giovinco double helped Toronto FC to a 4-0 victory over Eastern Conference rivals New York City FC on Sunday. Giovinco skipped around an attempted tackle from Andrea Pirlo like he wasn’t even there (which is close to the truth) and curled in his first goal from distance.
Kristine Lilly, a midfielder/forward for the USWNT for 23 years, holds the world record for most international appearances made by a man or woman. To give you some perspective on just how incredible the feat of 354 caps is, the male player with the most international appearances (Egypt’s Ahmed Hassan) has 184.
Kristine Lilly played on the national team over 4 different decades. She witnessed the permed and teased hair of the 1980s and the sidebangs of the early 2010s, the peak of the Michael Jackson era, the rise of Taylor Swift and everything in between.
Football is shocking. It’s so shocking that people have been known to literally lose their minds while doing football. I don’t have to prove that statement to you, it’s just a publicly acknowledged fact. Here are 25 football things that’ll have you looking like Phil Jones defending a lofted through ball by the time you’ve finished reading.
#1. Thomas Muller is only 27 years old. The six-time Bundesliga winner and 85-time German international is really just getting started.