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<\/p>\nLa Roja’s skipper has now made the same amount of appearances for his nation as the Italy icon.<\/p>\n
Spain captain Sergio Ramos has equalled Italian legend Gianluigi Buffon’s record for the most international appearances made by a player for a European nation. Ramos made his 176th appearance for La Roja in Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with the Netherlands in a friendly at Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam – matching the mark set by Buffon made with his final Italy appearance in March 2018.<\/p>\n
The Spaniards couldn’t mark the 34-year-old’s milestone with a win, however, despite Sergio Canales’ maiden international goal putting them ahead in the 19th minute. Manchester United’s Donny van de Beek drilled home an equaliser in the second half as the two teams played out a draw ahead of their UEFA Nations League fixtures later in the international break.<\/p>\n
During his teenage years at Sevilla, Ramos made his debut for Spain’s national team during a 3-0 friendly win against China in March 2005 – with his appearance at 18 years, 361 days making him the national team’s youngest player in 55 years at the time. After joining Real Madrid in the summer of 2015, Ramos scored his first two goals for Spain shortly after in a 4-0 thrashing of San Marino in the 2006 World Cup qualifiers.<\/p>\n
Ramos also established himself as an indispensable part of the Spanish team that won the 2010 World Cup and European Championships in 2008 and 2012. He captained his nation for the first time in a friendly against South Korea in June 2010 and eventually took over the role permanently in 2018 for the World Cup once legendary goalkeeper Iker Casilias was phased out of the squad.<\/p>\n
Ramos started his career as an attacking right-back, but eventually moved into central defence when his defensive qualities became apparent. Despite playing as a centre-back, Ramos is Spain’s eighth-highest all-time goalscorer with 23 goals, as he often takes penalties and threatens from set pieces. He also holds the record for the most international victories for La Roja with 129 wins.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He is Regarded as one of the best defenders in the world, and of his generation, Ramos is a physically strong player who excels in the air due to his elevation, eye for goal, and heading accuracy, making him a goal threat on set-pieces; he is also a competent and aggressive tackler. In addition to his defensive skills and goalscoring ability, he is gifted with pace, and is comfortable on the ball, possessing good technical ability, as well as good distribution, passing, and crossing ability, which allows him to carry the ball forward, switch the play with long balls, or play out from the back on the ground. According to Spanish sports newspaper Marca, FIFA’s official records confirmed that in 2015, Ramos was clocked at a sprinting speed of 30.6 kilometers per hour, making him one of the fastest footballers in the world at the time. He is also an accurate penalty taker, and is known for often using the Panenka technique when taking them. He has also been known to take free kicks, courtesy of his ability to bend the ball and his powerful striking ability from distance.<\/p>\n
Ramos has earned plaudits for his leadership, athleticism, technical prowess, and his ability to excel both offensively and defensively, as well as his versatility, which allows him to be deployed as a centre back and as a full back; in his youth, he often played as a right-back, while he later established himself as a centre-back as his career progressed. Due to his wide range of skills, his former Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti has compared him to legendary defender Paolo Maldini; he went on to describe him as “the best defender in the world at the moment” in 2014, a view which was echoed by Giorgio Chiellini in 2020. Ramos has also occasionally been deployed as a central or defensive midfielder, in particular under Ancelotti during the 2014\u201315 season. Ramos has been praised for his decisive performances in important games, most notably for Real Madrid, due to his tendency to score crucial goals for his team, and is considered by several pundits to be one of the most reliable performers in high-pressure situations. However, despite his ability as a defender, his tactical sense, consistency, and concentration from match to match have been questioned at times by pundits and other footballing figures, who have accused him of being too impulsive in his challenges or prone to occasional defensive errors throughout the course a season.<\/p>\n
Ramos is also often criticised in the media for using excessive, reckless force while playing, as well as for his lack of discipline and tendency to pick-up an excessive number of unnecessary cards; he has also been accused of diving.<\/p>\n
As for his disciplinary record, Ramos holds multiple disciplinary records, for Real Madrid, in the Champions League, La Liga, El Cl\u00e1sico, and in the Spanish national team.<\/p>\n
Ramos holds the record for most carded player in La Liga, with 191 cards. His 171 yellow cards surpass Alberto Lopo, the former record holder for La Liga yellow cards.
\nThe remaining 20 are red cards, making Ramos the most sent-off player in La Liga as well. His La Liga card record is higher than any other player’s in the major European leagues, making him the most booked player in all major European top divisions.<\/p>\n
In the Champions League, Ramos has amassed 40 yellow cards and 4 red cards (3 of which were straight red cards), making him both the most-carded player and joint-most red-carded player in Champions League history.<\/p>\n
Lastly, Ramos also holds the record for being the most carded player in the history of the Spanish national team, with 24 yellow cards.<\/p>\n
Spain are currently positioned top of Nations League A Group 4 with seven points – one ahead of Germany and Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Their next fixtures in the competition will come against Switzerland (Saturday) and Germany (Wednesday).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
La Roja’s skipper has now made the same amount of appearances for his nation as the Italy icon. Spain captain Sergio Ramos has equalled Italian legend Gianluigi Buffon’s record for the most international appearances made by a player for a European nation. Ramos made his 176th appearance for La Roja in Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":2623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[349,348,351,345,350,346,347],"class_list":["post-2620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-friendlies","tag-netherlands","tag-real-madrid","tag-sergio-ramos","tag-sevilla","tag-spain","tag-spain-vs-netherlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2625,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions\/2625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}