8 players from World Cup 2002 we can’t believe are still playing in 2022

The 2002 World Cup was a long time ago. Two decades, in fact. Just over 10 million minutes if we’re being even more precise. Yet, believe it or not, some of the players who went to that tournament are still playing professionally in 2022.

It takes something really special to achieve this feat. Firstly, you’ve got to be good enough for a World Cup squad when in, or barely out of, your teens. Then you’ve got to keep chugging along for a full 20 years as a pro, with all the physical exertion and knocks that entails.

We’ve picked out the eight players who – so far as we can tell – are the only ones from the tournament in Japan and Korea to still be playing for money now.

The Italian shot-stopper is a timeless football icon. And, remarkably, 2002 wasn’t even his first World Cup.

He’d been to the 1998 tournament in France as a 20-year-old as a backup option to Gianluca Pagliuca, but he did not play a game.

By 2002 he was secure as first choice, however, having taken the gloves prior to Euro 2000. But Buffon’s first World Cup did not go to plan. Italy were eliminated in the round of 16 by South Korea’s extra-time golden goal, despite Buffon saving a controversial penalty in normal time.

Not to worry. He won the thing four years later as the penalty shootout hero in the final and has amassed 11 league titles, dozens of other domestic honours and a UEFA Cup in a glittering career.

He’s now back at Parma where it all began in the mid-90s and, aged 44, he remains their No.1.

Joaquin went to the 2002 tournament as a 20-year-old and was tasked with taking the fourth penalty in Spain’s controversial quarter-final elimination to South Korea. He missed, but given he was carrying an injury and was so inexperienced, he probably shouldn’t