What Is a Cap in Soccer?
While most soccer competitions are on the club level, some events, such as the World Cup, bring together national teams instead. It’s a great honor to be selected for the national team and appear in a game wearing the shirt representing the player’s native country, regardless of how much money or fame that player has already earned with his club. Those who appear in international games officially sanctioned by FIFA are said to have collected ‘caps’ for their country. Thus, the number of caps a player has on his resume corresponds to the number of appearances for his national team over his career.
Not surprisingly, players with a lot of caps are widely recognized as legends and treated with a mixture of awe and respect by fellow players as well as spectators. National team appearances may not be as profitable as club contracts, but they bring even greater glory and could lead to virtual immortality in case a big trophy is brought home. With this in mind, it’s worth spending some time to fully understand what is a cap in soccer and why this number tells us something important about a player.
How can soccer caps be earned?
As we already mentioned, caps are earned by being invited to and appearing for the national team. However, only certain games are counted towards the official total, so it can be pretty hard to earn caps, especially for a player born in a large nation with a strong soccer tradition. This includes matches played within the World Cup qualifiers and the World Cup itself, all continental championship qualifiers along with the final tournament, Olympic qualifiers as well as the Olympics, and any friendlies that were officially sanctioned by FIFA. Only senior team matches are counted, so players that represented their country at the youth level don’t earn caps for their efforts.
It’s not enough to be merely selected and present on the bench – only players who enter the game earn the cap for that match. The amount of time spent on the pitch is irrelevant, as all players who appear on the pitch get equal credit. In practice, that means only the 11 starters and potentially several substitutions can add to their cap total after a single game, and it’s impossible to earn more than one cap per match. Considering that some national teams only play a handful of games that award caps during a calendar year, it’s clear that even for the best players, the process of collecting soccer caps is a slow and painstaking endeavor.
Why is a ‘cap’ used to indicate international appearance?
Today, a cap is a well-established term in soccer, and most fans know what it means. However, the origin of the term is not widely known, and there is an interesting story behind it. Like many other stories in football, this one happened on the island where the game was invented – Great Britain. In the 19th century, there was a practice of awarding physical embroidered caps to all players who represented their country in a game. This commemorative item was very popular with the general public, and the term was generalized to symbolize a player’s contributions to the national team.
Today, this practice has been long discontinued and mostly forgotten. In some instances, a player could be given a physical cap as a gift to mark a big milestone, for example, his 100th official cap. Other than that, the cap number is purely symbolic and represents just another statistic that explains how successful a player’s career was.
Which players hold the records for most caps?
Given the scarcity of possible caps and the difficulty of remaining at a level of the national team over a long period, collecting a large number of international soccer caps is a huge achievement. Players who are near the top of the all-time table in caps in their respective nations command a lot of respect. In general, a cap total that exceeds 100 is considered exceptional, but some players have pieced together nearly twice that many.
The official record holder on the global level is Bader Al-Mutawa, who appeared for Kuwait a staggering 196 times, narrowly passing the previous leader, Soh Chin Ann of Malaysia, who was atop of the list for decades with 195 caps. Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal is currently third with 189 games played for the national team, and as an active player, he could easily add a few more appearances to this total in the future. A few other famous players with a lot of caps are Sergio Ramos of Spain with 180, famous goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon of Italy with 176, and Lionel Messi of Argentina with 162. The US player with the most soccer caps in history is Cobi Jones, with 164.
How much importance should be given to caps?
The number of caps depends on several different factors, including the length of a player’s career, the level of success of his national team, and even the size of his nation. There is a clear correlation between the quality level and the number of caps, but solid players that have been cornerstones of smaller national teams for a generation can often rival true superstars in this stat. That’s why it can be dangerous to use the number of caps as the primary parameter for evaluating a player’s career without taking into account the number of goals scored, win-loss record, major competitions won, and other meaningful inputs.
On the other hand, a cap number in the triple digits represents a stamp of approval of a legendary career. It takes a very long time to collect that many international appearances, and any player who was a part of a national team for a decade or longer has a place in the soccer history books. Caps are probably best understood as a legacy stat – they may not be the best proxy of greatness, but they measure sustained relevance and consistent contributions at the highest level of the sport.
