Harry Kane will become the most capped player for England’s men when he features against Croatia at Wembley. Yet in the context of the grand history of international football, his record total will be relatively low.

Kane will draw level with players including Dani Alves, Eden Hazard and Paolo Maldini on 126 caps. Illustrious players, none of whom lead their country’s appearance standings. Neither do Kevin De Bruyne or Luís Figo, on 127, or Manuel Neuer with 128. It will be some time next year before England’s captain enters European football’s top 50 players for international caps, never mind the global standings.

And this is only in men’s football. Fara Williams made 172 appearances for England women’s team, with fellow Lionessess Jill Scott (161), Lucy Bronze (148), Karen Carney (144), Alex Scott (140), Casey Stoney (130) and Rachel Yankey (129) ahead of Kane too.

This is not to undermine Kane’s achievement. If anything, it enhances it. His standing within a wider context shows how hard it has been for anyone to play so many games for England’s men. Competition is fierce, with team success limited in the 49 years between winning the World Cup and Kane’s debut in March 2015. A good way to earn lots of caps is to go deep into tournaments, something England did not do regularly enough until the past decade.

England’s top caps collector stands alone among his countrymen in more ways than simply the headline figure. Kane’s tally of 36 appearances at major tournaments is the most by an Englishman. He leads the standings for the European Championship with 18 and is only one shy of Jordan Pickford’s record 19 at the World Cup. Kane recently signed a contract extension with Bayern Munich until 2029 so the idea of him adding to his tally at the 2030 World Cup at the age of 36 feels plausible.

He has also played 26 more competitive games for England’s men than anyone else. The comparison is unfair across the ages, or even against relatively recent times. Anyone who has represented the team since September 2018 will have had more opportunities to play competitive international football thanks to the introduction of the Nations League. Friendlies filled many windows in the past.

Players from yesteryear played fewer qualifiers too. Billy Wright amassed 105 caps between 1946 and 1959, missing three England matches in that period. Yet he played only 10 World Cup qualifiers, as many as England had for the 2022 tournament alone. The first European Championship did not take place until 1960. Nonetheless, Kane remains in front for competitive caps whether we include the Nations League or not.

Wright makes for another interesting comparison. By playing in 105 of England’s 108 matches in the span from his debut to his final game, the Wolves legend appeared in 97% of the possible matches across his international career. No player can hope to match that rate in the modern era, with a far greater focus on rest, recovery and rotation than occurred in Wright’s day.

Among players with at least 50 caps in more recent times, Des Walker played 92% of England’s matches between his first and last. David Platt featured alongside him in 41 of those games and played 82% of the possible total across his international spell. That puts Platt marginally ahead of Kane (81%), though the latter’s time with the national team has lasted almost as long as Walker and Platt’s combined. Nobody in the Premier League era has featured as regularly as Kane across at least a decade as an England player.

The 29 matches he has missed include 12 for which he was an unused substitute. Of the remaining 17, 12 were friendlies and one was in the second tier of the Nations League. When called for a match of significant consequence, Kane has almost always answered.

Playing so often may have been a detriment at times, particularly when looking off the pace at major tournaments. Was it worth Kane making 12 starts against the might of Andorra, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and San Marino (with eight of the games away from home) if it cost him something when rather more was at stake?

That is a great unknown. What is known is that nobody has been more dedicated or integral to England in the modern era than Kane. His record tells us so.