Participations
Not including 2026

Mexico (17)
USA (11)
Costa Rica (6)
Honduras (3)
Canada (2)

El Salvador (2)
Cuba (1)
Haiti (1)
Jamaica (1)
Panama (1)
Trinidad and Tobago (1)

Best finishes
USA – semi-finals (1930)
Cuba – quarter-finals (1938)
Mexico – quarter-finals (1970)
Mexico – quarter-finals (1986)
USA – quarter-finals (2002)
Costa Rica – quarter-finals (2014)

Most appearances
Rafa Marquez (19)
Andres Guardado (13)
Landon Donovan (12)

Javier Hernandez (12)
Hector Moreno (12)
DaMarcus Beasley (11)
Cuauhtemoc Blanco (11)
Celso Borges (11)
Antonio Carbajal (11)
Cobi Jones (11)
Keylor Navas (11)

Guillermo Ochoa (11)
Earnie Stewart (11)
Gerardo Torrado (11)
Joel Campbell (10)
Clint Dempsey (10)
Hector Herrera (10)
Brian McBride (10)
Claudio Reyna (10)
Carlos Salcido (10)

Trivia
American Bert Patenaude scored the first World Cup hat-trick in 1930. The Fall River native helped USA become the only team from outside Europe or South America to reach the World Cup semi-finals in the 20th century.
Mexican Manuel Rosas, who was only 18 years and 93 days when he converted the World Cup’s first-ever penalty in 1930, is the second-youngest player to score in the competition after Pele. Gavi, Michael Owen, Nicolae Kovacs, Dmitry Sychev and Lionel Messi are the only 18-year-olds to register a goal in the global finals.

Marti and Pepe Vantolra are the only father and son to play for different nations at the World Cup. The former, a Barcelona winger, appeared for Spain in 1934. His club career took him to Mexico, where he married Josefina Cardenas, the niece of Mexican president Lazaro Cardenas. Their son, Pepe, represented El Tri at the 1970 finals.
Aldo ‘Buff’ Donelli, who scored USA’s solitary goal at Italy 1934, was a prominent American football player who later coached in the NFL.
A dishwasher, a dock worker, a hearse driver, a milkman and a postman represented the US against England at Brazil 1950. Gene Olaff was refused leave from his job as a state policeman. “We have no chance,” said coach Bill Jeffrey pre-game. “We’re sheep ready to be slaughtered.” When USA caused a sport-shaking upset and won 1-0, one British newspaper, assuming a misprint in the wires, reported that England had triumphed 10-1.

Mexico goalkeeper Antonio Carbajal was the first man to go to five World Cups. He was known as ‘El Cinco Copas’. Carbajal, Rafa Marquez, Andres Guardado and Guillermo Ochoa ensure that Mexicans incredibly account for half of the eight men to have been to five editions of the tournament. Lothar Matthaus, Gigi Buffon, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are the others.

Mexico’s 4-0 win over El Salvador in 1970 was the first meeting between two countries from the same continent other than Europe or South America. The only other all-Concacaf affair was USA’s 2-0 win over Mexico in the last 16 at Korea/Japan 2002.
Dino Zoff had gone a staggering 1,142 minutes without conceding for Italy until Manno Sanon sprinted away from Luciano Spinosi, jinked around the goalkeeper and slotted Haiti into a shock lead on their World Cup debut in 1974.
Bora Milutinovic coached Mexico, Costa Rica and USA at the 1986, 1990 and 1994 finals respectively, guiding all of them into the knockout phase and earning the nickname ‘Miracle Worker’. He was at the controls of Nigeria and China PR at the subsequent two global finals, becoming the first man to guide five different teams in the World Cup – a record Carlos Alberto Parreira equalled in 2010.
Tony Meola is the youngest captain in World Cup history. The goalkeeper wore the armband for USA against Czechoslovakia at Italia ’۹۰ at the age of 21 years and 109 days.

Astonishingly, one day after playing in the USA’s unfortunate 1-0 defeat by Germany in Ulsan at Korea/Japan 2002, Landon Donovan rose from the bench to help San Jose Earthquakes beat Colorado Rapids in the MLS.

Trinidad and Tobago, whose population was just 1.3 million, outranked Northern Ireland to become the least-inhabited nation to qualify for the World Cup in 2005. Iceland, with a population of only 340,000, eclipsed them in 2017.
The father and grandfather of Javier Hernandez, who scored in three World Cups, also represented Mexico in the competition. Javier Hernandez Sr was part of El Tri’s squad in 1986, while Tomas Balcazar played for them in 1954. ‘Chicharito’ and Balcazar both netted against France in the global finals as 22-year-olds.

Honduras became the first nation to include three brothers in a World Cup squad in 2010: Jerry, Wilson and Johnny Palacios.
Tim Howard made a mind-blowing 16 saves in USA’s 2-1 extra-time loss to Belgium at Brazil 2014 – a record for a World Cup game. #ThingsTimHowardCouldSave began trending on Twitter, with dinosaurs, Ned Stark, Private Ryan and The Titanic among a host of comical suggestions, while the Wikipedia entry’s incumbent for the United States Secretary of Defense was changed to Tim Howard.

Rafa Marquez held the record for most appearances as captain in the World Cup (17) until he was surpassed by Lionel Messi (now 19) at Qatar 2022.