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Martin Sleziak

09:43

Q: Which soccer player played for the most national teams?

Alfredo Di Stéfano back in the 50's-60's played for Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay. Many soccer players played for 2 teams, but that's the only case I know of someone playing for 3 teams. Was he the player who played for the most national teams or was there another one? Which soccer player play...

football

There is a Wikipedia article List of nationality transfers in association football - however, according to the talk page, there are several issues with that list. — Martin 2 hours ago

@Martin I agree with you. The vast majority of the players on that list don't seem to have actually played for the team they were originally eligible for. — F1Krazy 2 mins ago

@F1Krazy I did not want to leave too long comment thread on the main, so let me respond here.

As I have mentioned in the previous comment, the list is rather problematic (in it's current version).

Still, it was probably worth mentioning at least in a comment. (If that list were well-maintained, it would be a good resource for this question. Moreover, Wikipedia is often a natural place where to start searching for some information.)

Here is a quote from the talk page:

> All in all, this is an unreliable and inconsistent list and should either be reduced to either players who have actually played for two different countries, even if that's a switch from youth to senior level, and references should be added to provide evidence of those left.

F1Krazy

Fair enough. And even with the unreliability, I couldn't find anyone that would beat or equal Di Stéfano or Kilkenny

Not that I looked through the entire list, I got bored somewhere around H

Martin Sleziak

I have checked those players who have three countries at their names in that list. There are several of them - but in iIRC the three listed countries were countries were they would be eligible, not the ones where they actually played.

I only checked those who have more than one flag in the "From Nation" column - such as, for example, Adnan Januzaj.

F1Krazy

Yeah, that's what I did too

Martin Sleziak

Let's hope somebody finds some better source.

> Stanković is renowned for being the only man to represent three different nations at FIFA World Cups – Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro and Serbia.

This is from Wikipedia article Dejan Stanković.

However, I am not sure that counts. (It was connected to dissolution of Yugoslavia.)

F1Krazy

No, me neither, since those are successor states of each other

The article's sidebar lists all his caps under "Serbia"

Martin Sleziak

09:53

The article FIFA eligibility rules could probably better source.

It lists several players who played for multiple countries.

Perhaps it is reasonable to start a CW answer.

F1Krazy

The eligibility rules article mentions László Kubala, he looks like a good contender: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Kubala