Published on 6/21/2026
German Manuel Neuer, Bayern Munich’s goalkeeper, engraved his name in the annals of World Cup history with an unprecedented achievement after participating with his country’s national team against Côte d’Ivoire.
Yesterday, the “Manschaft” snatched a hard-fought victory from the “Elephants” with a score of 2-1 in the match that took place at Toronto Stadium for the second round of the fifth group competitions.
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Neuer makes World Cup history
Neuer (40 years old) holds the record for the number of matches played by a goalkeeper in the history of the tournament, after arriving in the 21st World Cup match.
Neuer reached this number after participating in 5 editions of the World Cup, starting with South Africa 2010, passing through Brazil 2014, Russia 2018, Qatar 2022, all the way to the current World Cup held in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
During these matches, Neuer conceded 18 times, while he succeeded in keeping them clean in 7 matches, according to data from the famous “Transfermarkt” website.
Neuer broke up his partnership with his French counterpart, Hugo Lloris, whose tally stopped at 20 World Cup matches, which he played between 2010 and 2022, the last of which was the Qatar World Cup final, which the “Roosters” lost to Argentina on penalties.
Neuer had equaled Lloris’ record at the beginning of his career in the 2026 World Cup, when he started in the 7-1 win over Curacao in the first round.
The 10 goalkeepers who participated most in World Cup matches:
- German Manuel Neuer: 21 matches.
- Frenchman Hugo Lloris: 20 matches.
- German Sepp Mayer: 18 matches.
- Brazilian Claudio Taffarel: 18 matches.
- The quartet: Frenchman Fabien Barthez, Englishman Peter Shilton, Spaniard Iker Casillas and Italian Dino Zoff: 17 matches.
- Spaniard Indoni Zubizarreta: 16 matches.
- Italian Gianluigi Buffon: 14 matches.
Neuer can still enhance his record with at least two matches for the German national team, in the third round of the group stage as well as the round of 32, and perhaps more, and all of that depends on the results of the “Mansheft” in the qualifying rounds.
Most played matches
At the same time, Neuer settled in sixth place on the list of players who played the most matches in the history of the World Cup, equal to his compatriot Uwe Seeler, the Polish Wladyslaw Zmuda and the Argentine Diego Maradona, according to what the Portuguese newspaper “Record” reported.
Neuer comes behind Argentine Lionel Messi (27), German Lothar Matthaus (25), his compatriot Miroslav Klose (24), Italian Paolo Maldini and Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo (23).
