17 Most Decorated Players in Football History Ranked by Trophies Won

Every football player dreams of lifting as much silverware as they can possibly get their hands on. Some of the best players to have played the beautiful game have extremely bare-looking trophy cabinets, proving how difficult it is to win any honour in the sport.

Players such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have made it look easy for many years, as the duo have led their respective teams to an unbelievable number of trophies over their long and storied careers. Then there are mercenaries like Zlatan Ibrahimovic who – while also brilliant players in their own right – move around the most historically successful clubs in the world to collect silverware at will.

This article now looks at the most successful players in football history, based on the number of trophies they have amassed throughout their playing careers. There’s even a chance for a couple of these players to add further to their already sensational hauls.

17Zlatan Ibrahimovic

32 trophies

The Swedish forward won almost every trophy there was to win during his time as a footballer apart from the Champions League. He would be further up this list had Juventus’ Serie A titles in 2004/05 and 2005/06 not been revoked. There will be no more opportunities to add further silverware for the Swede, as he announced his retirement in 2023. A sad day for the sport, though he continues to be in and around the game as one of 10 legendary ex-footballers who now own a club.

16Luka Modric

33 trophies

As alluded to, winning trophies isn’t for everyone – but to do it with such poise and know-how as Luka Modric has done over the years is commendable. Between 2005/06 and 2007/08, the Croat won everything there was to win domestically with Dinamo Zagreb before enduring a trophy-less four-year stint with Tottenham Hotspur.

A move to Real Madrid beckoned – and the rest is history, as they say. Having picked up a handful of trophies since arriving in 2012, the one-time Ballon d’Or winner has won the Champions League six times, the La Liga on four occasions and is a five-time Spanish Super Cup winner. Poised to collect more before hanging up his boots, the 39-year-old is a bonafide winner of silverware.

15Xavi

33 trophies

A tremendous footballer, Xavi was a key cog for a Barcelona side that dominated football at the back end of the 2000s and the first half of the 2010s. He won 25 trophies during his illustrious 17-year stint in Barcelona’s first team, including four Champions League titles.

He also guided Spain to success in back-to-back European Champions (2008 and 2012) as well as the 2010 World Cup. Xavi became a manager after hanging up his boots and led Barcelona to a La Liga title from the dugout rather than in the middle of the park, before being replaced by Hansi Flick. In his twilight years, he moved to Al Saad in Qatar and added four more trophies to his tally.

14Karim Benzema

33 trophies

In addition to his 25 trophies at Real Madrid, Karim Benzema won seven titles at Lyon and the UEFA Nations League with France in 2021. Now in his late 30s, the Frenchman joined Al-Ittihad in the summer of 2023, and he has a chance of adding to his trophy haul in Saudi Arabia. Al-Ittihad won the Saudi Pro League in the 2022/23 season and will likely be competitive in competitions going forward.

His exclusion from the France squad for several years prevented him from being part of the World Cup-winning campaign in 2018, denying the striker a further accolade. For the majority of his career, Benzema was seen as an exceptional team player – as shown by his longevity with Los Blancos – but he was also rewarded for his individual displays in 2022 when he was awarded the Ballon d’Or.

13Thomas Muller

34 trophies

Mr. Bayern Munich himself, Thomas Muller is the epitome of a one-club man, having made 749 appearances for Die Roten at the time of writing, scoring 248 goals, providing 274 assists, and playing a pivotal role in 13 Bundesliga titles and two Champions League triumphs. He also ranks among the top for most assists in World Cup history, having helped Germany secure the 2014 World Cup.

What’s more, the understated workhorse is in the top 20 all-time Champions League goal scorers, while he also has the same number of assists in Europe’s leading club competition as Xavi. Taking those goals and assists into consideration, Muller is definitely one of the most underrated players in football history. But what he lacks in individual accolades, he most certainly makes up for in team honours, as he is joint with Giggs for the most league titles and is now also on-par with Kroos for being the most decorated German footballer of all time.

12Toni Kroos

34 trophies

A cool and collected figure in the Real Madrid engine room, Toni Kroos waltzed himself onto the list with 34 trophies to boot. Impressively, six of those are Champions Leagues – five of which have been secured in Spain. Even while at Bayern Munich, the midfielder was somewhat of a serial winner.

He collected three Bundesliga titles in six years alongside a UEFA Super Cup and three German Cups. Unlike many players on this list, Griefswald-born Kroos is also a World Cup winner with Germany. Fittingly, in his final game for Los Blancos, the German midfielder won yet another Champions League title. What a fantastic player.

11Ryan Giggs

35 trophies

Ryan Giggs’ longevity was something else. The Welshman started off as a tricky winger with electric pace and then transitioned into a playmaker in his latter years, allowing him to play a key role for Manchester United until he hung up his boots at the age of 40.

Giggs spent his whole 24-year professional career at the Red Devils, where he won 36 trophies. His 13 Premier League titles is a record that may never be beaten. A large part of the winger’s success at Old Trafford came through the trust shown in him by Sir Alex Ferguson for so many years. That faith certainly paid off, and he was a key figure under the guise of his manager’s reign of terror.

10Kenny Dalglish

35 trophies

‘King Kenny’ established himself as a Celtic and Liverpool legend during his career as a professional footballer. After winning 11 trophies in Scotland, Kenny Dalglish moved to Liverpool where he won everything there was to win, including six First Division titles and three European Cup trophies.

Modern fans may know him better as the man who guided Blackburn Rovers to the Premier League title in 1994/95, but Dalglish was a serial winner during his playing days. To this day, he is regarded as one of Liverpool’s greatest-ever players, which is quite a compliment with the wealth of talent to have performed and lifted trophies in front of the Anfield faithful, and he also became a pretty successful manager after that as well, winning a further four league titles (though they are not counted in the glorious table below).

9Andres Iniesta

35 trophies

When you think of the greatest midfielders in the past 30 years, Andres Iniesta is a name that immediately springs to mind. The midfield maestro won everything there was to win during a 16-year spell in Barcelona’s first-team, including nine La Liga titles and four Champions Leagues. His greatest moment came in the 2010 World Cup final when he scored a dramatic 116th-minute winner for Spain against the Netherlands.

Now 40, Iniesta announced his retirement in October 2024, describing his decision as “the most difficult of my life”. What’s next for Iniesta remains to be seen, but it’s possible that we’ll see him involved in coaching in some capacity in the near future.

8David Alaba

36 trophies

Having plied his trade for both Real Madrid and Bayern, David Alaba’s trophy cabinet was always going to be well-stacked, wasn’t it? The 32-year-old has struggled with injuries in recent years, which is a huge shame as he’s undoubtedly one of the world’s best defensive players when fit.

Alaba totted up almost 15 years of success in Germany, winning 10 Bundesliga titles and two Champions League, before moving to the Spanish capital – and, of course, his pursuit of silverware failed to wilt. Since his move to Los Blancos in 2021, he’s kept on winning with a duo of La Liga titles and two more Champions League trophies under his belt. Oh, he’s also been named Austria’s footballer of the year on ten separate occasions.