Srna makes record 486th appearance for Shakhtar
Thursday, April 14, 2016
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Darijo Srna has played his 486th match for Shakhtar, breaking a 29-year-old club record on the same night as he moves further into the all-time top 20 in UEFA club competition.
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Darijo Srna has made his 486th appearance for Shakhtar against Braga this evening, breaking a club record that Mikhail Sokolovskiy has held for nearly three decades.
It is 13 years since the Croatian right-back arrived in Donetsk as a gauche 20-year-old, preceding coach Mircea Lucescu by ten months. He has been a fixture of the team ever since. Srna has collected eight league titles, five Ukrainian Cups, seven Ukrainian Super Cups and was key to their 2009 UEFA Cup win.
"He is the personification of today's Shakhtar," the usurped Sokolovskiy told Shakhtar's official website. "This is a team of European class, playing in the Champions League every year, boasting a great number of brilliant victories. Srna has been captaining them for many years now; the whole of Europe knows him."
Srna's longevity at the top of the game is further underlined by the fact that the UEFA Europa League second leg against Braga is his 134th game in UEFA club competition. That lifts him into joint 18th place in the all-time list, alongside former France and Real Madrid great Claude Makélélé.
Most UEFA club competition games, qualifying included
1. 174 – Paolo Maldini
2. 173 – Xavi Hernández
3. 165 – Iker Casillas
4. 163 – Clarence Seedorf
5. 161 – Raúl González
6. 160 – Javier Zanetti
7. 159 – Ryan Giggs
8. 150 – Jamie Carragher
9. 144 – Roberto Carlos
10. 143 – Andriy Shevchenko
11. 142 – Oliver Kahn
11. 142 – Luís Figo
11. 142 – Olexandr Shovkovskiy
14. 139 – Gianluigi Buffon
14. 139 – Thierry Henry
14. 139 – Andrea Pirlo
17. 137 – Paul Scholes
18. 134 – Claude Makélélé
18. 134 – Darijo Srna