Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar: Who has the most international assists? | OneFootball

Lionel Messi‘s record in international football is mighty impressive.

No player to hail from South America has found the back of the net more times for their country than the Barcelona legend. Yes, that includes the great Pele.

Messi scored his 81st goal in Argentina’s colours during the team’s recent 3-0 home victory over Venezuela in 2022 World Cup qualifying.

Only Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, 115 goals), Ali Daei (Iran, 109 goals), Mokhtar Dahari (Malaysia, 89 goals) and Ferenc Puskas (Hungary, 84 goals) have been more prolific throughout the history of men’s international football.

As well as finding the back of the net a significant number of times, Messi has contributed assists aplenty with Argentina – 47 to be exact.

But that sizeable figure doesn’t put him top of the tree in terms of international assists accrued by a single player in the 21st century.

Messi has to make do with second place in that regard, with his Paris Saint-Germain teammate Neymar taking the gold medal.

Ronaldo makes up the rest of the top three and you can take a look at PopFoot‘s list of the 20 footballers with the most international assists since the turn of the millenium in full below.

The 20 players with the most international assists in the 21st century

20. Lukas Podolski (Germany)

Games: 130 | Assists: 28

19. David Silva (Spain)

Games: 125 | Assists: 28

18. Miralem Pjanic (Bosnia & Herzegovina)

Games: 103 | Assists: 28

17. Darijo Srna (Croatia)

Games: 133 | Assists: 29

16. Andres Iniesta (Spain)

Games: 131 | Assists: 29

15. Luis Suarez (Uruguay)

Games: 125 | Assists: 29

14. Andres Guardado (Mexico)

Games: 174 | Assists: 30

13. Miroslav Klose (Germany)

Games: 137 | Assists: 30

12. Thomas Muller (Germany)

Games: 110 | Assists: 30

11. Alexis Sanchez (Chile)

Games: 147 | Assists: 31

10. Wesley Sneijder (Holland)

Games: 134 | Assists: 31

9. Cesc Fabregas (Spain)

Games: 110 | Assists: 31

8. Dries Mertens (Belgium)

Games: 101 | Assists: 31

7. David Beckham (England)

Games: 81 | Assists: 32

6. Eden Hazard (Belgium)

Games: 115 | Assists: 34

5. Kevin De Bruyne (Belgium)

Games: 85 | Assists: 39

4. Mesut Ozil (Germany)

Games: 92 | Assists: 40

3. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)

Games: 184 | Assists: 41

2. Lionel Messi (Argentina)

Games: 159 | Assists: 47

1. Neymar (Brazil)

Games: 116 | Assists: 51

Neymar’s international record really is obscenely good. On top of his 51 assists, Brazil’s talisman has scored a whopping 71 goals and will almost certainly surpass Pele’s total of 77 before calling time on his career with the national team.

However, while Neymar leads the way for assists, he doesn’t possess the best assists-per-game record among the players featured above.

That accolade belongs to De Bruyne, who is currently averaging 0.46 in that department, which is just superior to the Brazilian’s 0.44 ratio.

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