Every few months, another graphic pops up on Twitter claiming to settle who’s won the most trophies in football. They all say the same thing now: Messi’s on top, and he’s pulling away from Dani Alves.

How many trophies exactly? Depends who you ask. Some outlets stick with 45 or 46, counting only “major” titles. Others give him 47 after Inter Miami’s 2025 MLS Cup, throwing in the Leagues Cup and Supporters’ Shield too. Either way, he’s got more hardware than anyone who’s ever played.

The order behind him doesn’t change much. Alves sits on 43 or 44. Hossam Hassan has 41. Hossam Ashour, 39. Busquets, 38. Then Maxwell, Iniesta, and Piqué bunched together at 37. People argue constantly about what should “count”—preseason cups, conference titles, regional stuff—but the leaderboard stays the same.

Here’s what throws people: Ronaldo isn’t in the top five. The guy who’s scored more goals than anyone in the sport’s history? He’s got around 34 team trophies. Same neighborhood as Ryan Giggs. He’s well behind two Egyptian players most European fans have never heard of.

These lists leave out a lot. They don’t mention the sexual assault charges against Alves. They don’t explain that Al Ahly basically owns African football, which is why Hassan and Ashour have so many titles—same way Barcelona’s dominance padded the numbers for Messi and Busquets.

Player Trophies
Lionel Messi 47
Dani Alves 42
Hossam Hassan 40
Hossam Ashour 38
Sergio Busquets 37

The top five, broken down

Messi won 35 trophies at Barcelona. Ten La Liga titles. Four Champions Leagues. Domestic cups every May like clockwork. PSG gave him two more league titles and a Super Cup. Argentina brought the World Cup, two Copa Américas, the Finalissima. His collection was ridiculous before he even got to Florida.

Miami was supposed to be retirement with palm trees. Instead, he keeps winning. Leagues Cup. Supporters’ Shield. Now an MLS Cup, and potentially the final hardware. He might be at 47. He’s made a league that most of the world ignores into part of the trophy conversation.

Alves got to 43 or 44 by never saying no. Bahia, Sevilla, then Barcelona—where he won 23 trophies including six league titles and three Champions Leagues. Juventus and PSG added more. Brazil gave him Copa Américas, Confederations Cups, Olympic gold. He’d still be number one if Messi hadn’t passed him.

Then came the nightclub in Barcelona. His conviction for sexual assault got overturned on appeal, but the accusations changed how people talk about him. What do you do with a player who shaped modern football but carries that kind of baggage?

Hossam Hassan is the name that confuses everyone outside Africa. Egyptian media has treated him as the record holder for years—41 trophies across Al Ahly, Zamalek, Al Ain, and the national team. Fourteen Egyptian league titles. Three Africa Cup of Nations wins over nearly twenty years. Most fans scrolling through these graphics have no idea who he is.

Hossam Ashour’s story is simpler: he stayed at Al Ahly for seventeen years while they won everything. Thirty-nine titles. Thirteen league championships. Six CAF Champions League medals. One of football’s most decorated players, and he never played a minute in Europe.

Busquets spent his career making everyone around him look better. Nine La Liga titles at Barcelona. Seven Copas del Rey. Three Champions Leagues. Three Club World Cups. A World Cup and Euros with Spain. Then he followed Messi to Miami and picked up a few more. Around 38 total.

Maxwell, Iniesta, and Piqué are right behind on 37. Ronaldo and Giggs are back in the mid-thirties somewhere. Being outside the top five doesn’t make them less important. It just shows what this list actually measures: talent plus longevity plus being in the right place at the right time.

That’s the thing about “most decorated” debates—they’re really about football’s structure. Messi’s record is legit. But trophies pile up when you join dominant teams and stick around. Next time one of these graphics shows up in your feed, it’ll have the same names. Unless Messi wins something else in Miami, which at this point feels inevitable.