This is a progressive list of men's association footballers who have held or co-held the European record for international caps since 1978. The progression up to 1978 is derivable from the world record progression because the world record holder was always European, except when Ángel Romano narrowly overtook Imre Schlosser in 1924–27. After 1978, many sources, including FIFA and the Guinness Book of Records, reported subsequent European cap records as world records. Subsequent validation of the caps claimed by Cha Bum-Kun, Hussein Saeed, Majed Abdullah, and Adnan Al Talyani has shown that, even stripping out ineligible matches, these players exceeded the contemporary European counts. Similarly, Hossam Hassan of Egypt was reported as having broken Lothar Matthäus' putative record of 150 caps in 2001.
The only pre-1978 European records not listed in the world record progression are Schlosser's record-breaking 67th cap and Severino Minelli's record-equalling 68th cap.
Notes: