Who has the most assists in men's international football history? Lionel Messi claims all-time FIFA record

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 one all-time legend has now taken over the top spot for himself, the man he passed for the lead 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 Argentine hero Lionel Messi, who equalled the all-time mark in October of 2024 on his assist to Lautaro Martinez in a 1-0 win over Peru on November 19, 2024. Messi then claimed the record all for himself as he logged his 59th career international assist on October 14, 2025 when he fed Gonzalo Montiel for a 2-0 lead over Puerto Rico in an international friendly.

American legend Landon Donovan, who accumulated 58 assists throughout his illustrious international career according to U.S. Soccer's media guide, was the surprise leader in international football for around a decade. 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 now no longer.

As Messi closed the gap and looks to build his own lead atop the list, Brazil superstar Neymar is also just one assist shy of Donovan at the top. 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.

Updated October 14, 2025. Assist numbers via Opta, with some supplemented or confirmed by national federations.

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, is likely to grab the record all for himself when 2025 comes around. Neymar has time on his side, being five years younger, but a serious injury sustained late last year means he misses significant time 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.