Kimmich to join elite club - Who has played 100 games for Germany?

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·3 June 2025

Kimmich to join elite club - Who has played 100 games for Germany?

Many players dream of one day playing for their home country and just a few actually achieve this goal during their career - but only very special players manage to hit the 100-games-mark: Joshua Kimmich will become one of those special players when Germany face Portugal in the semifinal of the Nations League on June 4th, 2025.

In the history of the German national team (according to Transfermarkt), 987 players have played at least 1 game for their country - only 13 of them were able to hit that special mark of 100 games before Joshua Kimmich. Let's have a look at his predecessors:

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The Pioneers

“Der Kaiser” Franz Beckenbauer (1) was the first player in German history to play 100 games for the country. He won the World Cup as a player and as a manager - and would therefore deserve his own category.

After Beckenbauer, a handful of players from the 80s- and 90s-generation were able to mirror his game total for Germany: Lothar Matthäus (2), Jürgen Kohler (3), Jürgen Klinsmann (4) and Thomas Häßler (5) all joined “der Kaiser” in the club 100 for Germany.

Klinsmann also became the German headcoach (2004-2006) later on and was responsible for the “Sommermärchen” at the 2006 home World Cup: he breathed life into a defeated German team, which was eliminated from the 2004 EUROS in the group stage without getting a single win. They went on to get a more than respectable 3rd place in Germany in 2006.

Lothar Matthäus never achieved anything similar as a coach, but he is being remembered as the most capped German international of all time: he has played 150 games for Germany, but told Sky Germany:

“I would be very happy for Joshua Kimmich, if he would break my record one day!”

Generation World Cup 2014

Germany was blessed with generations full of talent. A few years after the players above played their last game for Germany, these few debuted and shaped the next generation of German football: Miroslav Klose (6), Lukas Podolski (7), Philipp Lahm (8), Bastian Schweinsteiger (9) and Per Mertesacker (10) went on an outstanding run of tournaments between 2006 and 2014 and reached at least the semifinal in every single one of them!

Germany got 3rd place in the World Cup 2006, 2nd place in the EUROS 2008, 3rd place in the World Cup 2010, reached the semifinal in the EUROS 2012 and won the World Cup in 2014!

Klose retired as Germany's all time top-scorer with 71 goals in 2014, alongside Lahm and Mertesacker. Schweinsteiger and Podolski continued their national team career until 2016/17 respectively.

All of those 5 players truly reflected what it meant to wear the Germany kit and will be remembered as key players of one of Germany's most glorious eras in history.

Germany's best of the best

While all previous players would also belong in a category named like this one, these last 3 players definetly have the right to be called the best of the best throughout their whole national team and club career: Thomas Müller (11), Manuel Neuer (12) and Toni Kroos (13).

Müller's first tournament was the 2010 World Cup - and he immediately became one of the best players in the world, winning the “Young player of the competition” award and the golden boot with 5 goals. Even though he was never able to live up to his stellar performances in the World Cups 2010 and 2014, he was able to come back into the national team after being "kicked out" in 2018 and will go down as one of Germany's most influential players ever.

The same thing goes for Manuel Neuer - he changed the game for modern day goalkeepers and is the benchmark for German goalkeepers to this very day! Regarded as the best goalkeeper of his generation, there was no getting past Manuel Neuer between 2010 and 2024(!). It is only due to Neuer's amazing longevity, that players like Adler, ter Stegen, Trapp, Leno, Baumann and many more barely got any games in for Germany, even though they would have most likely started for 80% of other countries in the meantime.

Toni Kroos has also had a great story with the German national team. He won the 2014 World Cup with Müller and Neuer, but went on a hiatus after the disappointing result for Germany in the 2018 World Cup. However, Kroos came back as Germany's “savior” for the 2024 home EUROS and ended his football career while being one of the best, if not the best, players on the pitch. Müller and Neuer also decided to end their national team career at the same time as Kroos.

Who could join Germany's club 100 in the near future?

Kimmich is set to become Germany's 14th ever player in the club 100 - the current captain of Germany is still waiting for his moment in the sun on the international stage with his country.

The next active players, who could theoretically join Kimmich, are Antonio Rüdiger (79 games), Leroy Sané (69 games) and Leon Goretzka (59) games. Rüdiger might be able to join club 100, depending on his fitness in the next few years, but it's quite unlikely that Sané or Goretzka ever get close to that special mark of 100 games.

As you have seen in this article, to get into club 100, you need to shape an entire generation. Players like Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala might be on their way to achieving that, but are still far off of that feat just yet.

This means, all eyes are on Kimmich for his special game against Portugal - and he himself is very proud before the match:

“I'm very proud and honoured to have played so many games for Germany. It shows that I played football on a very high level for the last 9-10 years; I was lucky to not be injured as often as others in that time, too. I experienced many highs and lows with the national team and hope to add to my game total in the future.”