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It is not very easy for a footballer break into the national team, especially if he is born in a major footballing nation like Germany, Brazil, Spain, Argentina, France or Portugal. Those teams are regularly in the contention for winning major tournaments or have won major tournaments in the past. As a result, they usually go into every major tournament with a considerable chance of advancing to the latter stages or winning the whole thing actually.
Therefore, it is extremely difficult to earn a national cap for any of those national teams. Those countries are full of players with world-class talent and therefore, there is heavy competition for getting into the national sides.
As a result, it becomes very difficult for any player to earn even 50 international caps for such teams and very few can actually manage to get more than 100.
There have been only some players in the history of football, who have managed to play in more than 150 matches for a major footballing nation. We take a look at 3 such players:
#1. Lothar Matthaus (West Germany/Germany)
Lothar Matthaus is one of the most successful footballers of all time and appeared for West Germany in exactly 150 internationals. He also remains one of the very few footballers to have played in 5 World cups for the German national team. He has featured in 5 European Championships and won a World Cup and a Euro each with Germany.
Matthaus was the best player and the captain of the side in the 1990 World Cup that Germany won. He played as an attacking midfielder and scored 4 goals. He was also a member of the German team that finished runners-up in the 1986 World cup.
He was also part of the West German teams those lifted the European championship in 1980 and finished runners-up in 1992. Moreover, a 37 years old Matthaus played as a sweeper in the 1998 World Cup and was their best player actually. He retired from football after earning 150 caps for Germany in the Euro 2000. He also scored 23 goals for Germany including 6 in World Cups in his glittering career.
#2. Iker Casillas(Spain)
Casillas is one of the most successful footballers and one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time. There are few footballers who have won every possible major silverware for their club and country and Casillas happens to be one of them.
He earned 167 international caps in a career that lasted more than 15 years. He also played in 4 World Cups and 4 European Championships for Spain.
Casillas won the Euro 2008, World Cup 2010 and Euro 2012 in the golden era of Spanish football. Casillas was a brilliant shot-stopper and reliable in the air too. He always had a calming influence on the defenders and organized things very well inside the penalty box.
Spain did not concede any goal in the final matches of each of the 3 major championships they won and Casillas deserves some credit for that. He also captained the Spanish national side for quite a while and retired after the 2014 World Cup.
#3. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)
One of the modern greats, Ronaldo has won every possible honour at the club level. However, he has also played in 154 matches for the Portuguese national team and scored 85 goals for them.
He won the European Championship in 2016 with Portugal, finished runner-up in the Euro 2004 and played in the World Cup semifinal in 2006. He has not yet retired from international football and might play some more matches for his national side.
Ronaldo played in the Euro 2004 as a 19-year-old on his home soil as Portugal lost to Greece in the final. He rose to prominence in world football after that and also helped Portugal become a major force in big tournaments. In all, he has played in 4 World Cups and 4 European Championships.
Ronaldo began his career as a winger but soon developed into a goal-scoring machine while playing for clubs like Manchester United and Real Madrid. He has scored 7 goals in World Cups including 4 in the 2018 edition of the tournament. Ronaldo has also scored 7 goals in European Championships.
His dream of winning a major tournament came true when Portugal beat France 1-0 in the final of Euro 2016. He probably is the greatest footballer that Portugal has ever produced, ahead of the likes of Eusebio and Luis Figo.
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