Published on 6/28/2026
Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo, a player for the Saudi Al-Nasr club, strengthened his long historical record with his country’s national team, during his participation in the current FIFA World Cup competitions.
At the conclusion of the group stage, Ronaldo (41 years old) played the match between the Portuguese national team and its Colombian counterpart, which ended in a goalless draw, as the veteran striker participated in the entire match for 90 minutes.
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With this participation, Ronaldo raised his tally of matches in the World Cup finals to 25, equaling the number of former German star Lothar Matthäus, and together they share second place in the list of players who played the most matches in the history of the World Cup.
As for the top spot on this historic list, it remains in the possession of Argentine star Lionel Messi, who maintained his position at the top despite not participating in his country’s last match against Jordan at the end of the group stage, as coach Lionel Scaloni preferred to keep him on the bench.
According to the statistics published by the “Opta” network on the social media platform “X”, Messi is on the throne of the most participating in the history of the World Cup finals with 28 matches, in front of Ronaldo and Matthaus, and the other German Miroslav Klose comes in third place with 24 matches, and the Italian Paolo Maldini is behind them with 23 matches.
