While goals are the most glamorous part of world football, scoring chances must be created from somewhere, and often those come from teammates.
At the international level, both scoring and assisting goals are rare and coveted events for most players. Yet some have accumulated historic totals across glittering careers, and those all-time greats are who we tend to celebrate most.
Assists at the international level are somewhat hard to keep track of, as record-keeping can be patchy — especially in past decades — and even in today's game there can sometimes be slight discrepancies in how goal assists are logged.
Yet The Sporting News has compiled the available data and brought you the all-time assist leaders in in the history of international football. While two legends are closing in on securing the record for themselves, the current leader may surprise you.
MORE: Who has scored the most goals in international football?
Who has the most assists in men's international football history?
The individual with the most assists is American legend Landon Donovan, who accumulated 58 assists throughout his illustrious international career, according to U.S. Soccer's media guide. Donovan, coincidentally, is also the career assists leader in Major League Soccer, and the league's Player of the Year award is named after him to honor his services.
However, his record is unlikely to last for much longer. Two South American legends — Neymar of Brazil and Lionel Messi of Argentina — are hot on his heels, and likely to both overtake the USMNT star.
Neymar is now just one assist shy of Donovan at the top, while Messi is three back of the American. It feels only a matter of time before both surpass the current leader, and even if that should fall short, at least one will almost surely reach the top.
Assist numbers via Opta, with some supplemented or confirmed by national federations.
Updated June 26, 2024
| Rank | Player | Nation | Assists | Caps |
| 1. | Landon Donovan | USA | 58 | 157 |
| 2. | Neymar | Brazil | 57 | 126 |
| 3. | Ferenc Puskas* | Hungary | 53 | 85 |
| = | Lionel Messi | Argentina | 55 | 184 |
| 5. | Sandor Kocsis* | Hungary | 50 | 68 |
| 6. | Kevin De Bruyne | Belgium | 49 | 103 |
| 7. | Pele* | Brazil | 47 | 92 |
| = | Cristiano Ronaldo | Portugal | 47 | 209 |
| 9. | Mesut Ozil | Germany | 40 | 92 |
| 10. | David Beckham | England | 36 | 115 |
Italics = active player
* The totals for Ferenc Puskas, Sandor Kocsis, and Pele are all estimated, as record-keeping during their career was not equivalent to today's standards, and questions remain regarding the true professional level of some matches in which they participated.
Will Neymar or Lionel Messi have more assists?
While Lionel Messi has spent much of his career being rivaled by Cristiano Ronaldo, he has also maintained a strong international competition with his former Barcelona teammate Neymar.
As both play for rival nations in Brazil and Argentina, there's obvious reasons for the two to be compared, and international assists is one category in which they both come out with glittering records.
The two superstars are likely to both end up atop the all-time international assists table when their careers are complete. Messi, who turned 37 in June 2024, could potentially put the assist record under threat during this summer's Copa America in the United States. Neymar has time on his side, being five years younger, but a serious injury sustained late last year means he misses the tournament and therefore may end up playing catch-up to Messi.
But what about Ronaldo? His assists have moved him up the list. It feels a stretch to think he could put Donovan's record under threat, particularly as he is now 39, but the Portugal great could at least climb further up the leaderboard at Euro 2024 this year.