We are into the latest international break and we’ve picked out some of the forgotten ballers you may not have realised are still playing for their national teams.

If you’ve read any of our other forgotten baller pieces, you will have noticed that once you get past 30, you tend to head to the fringe leagues of world football, which makes players older than that still playing for their national teams even more impressive.

Here are seven forgotten ballers that are still being called up to represent their country.

Robert Lewandowski

Lewandowski may have left club football in Europe last summer, but he is still representing Poland.

There is a six-year difference between the centre forward and any other player in the squad, but you deserve that spot when you have scored 92 international goals.

Lewandowski moved to MLS side Chicago Fire in the summer and has had no problem scoring goals.

He’s got 10 in 23 games so far, making him the third top scorer at the club.

Dusan Tadic

The former Southampton midfielder is still turning out for Serbia.

He’s already the country’s record appearance holder with 115 and continues to add to that, making his most recent appearance against the Netherlands in the previous international break.

As for his club football, the now 37-year-old joined Dutch side NEC Nijmegen on a free transfer in the summer, having spent the previous season in the UAE with Al-Wahda.

He’s got two goals and one assist in the eight games he has played for his new club so far.

Aleksandar Mitrovic

Another Serbian on this list is former Newcastle and Fulham striker Mitrovic.

Having set a Championship record of 43 goals in one season, Mitrovic left Fulham three years later for the money of Saudi Arabia.

He joined Al Hilal, scoring a goal a game in his first season and spent a second season there before moving to Qatar and Al Rayyan.

For his national team, he is the captain and record top scorer with 64 goals in his 106 games, almost double the most of Stevan Bobek in second.

Sead Kolasinac

The hardman fullback left Arsenal in 2022 to move to France and Marseille. In France, he joined a pretty decent team that featured players like Alexis Sanchez and Dimitri Payet.

One year there and he was on the move again, this time to Atalanta in the summer of 2023, where he remains to this day.

As for his national team, Kolasinac came up through the German youth ranks but switched to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2013. Since then, he has gone on to make 73 appearances for his country.

This year has seen him enjoy his longest run in the team with 11 appearances, the same as the previous three years combined.

Ivan Perisic

Perisic missed out on last night’s England game, but is still part of the Croatia squad a whole 15 years after he was first called up.

The now 37-year-old has made 161 appearances for Croatia, putting him second in the all-time appearance list behind Luka Modric, and plays his club football in the Netherlands.

After his brief stint with Spurs, Perisic went back to Croatia to join Hajduk Split but left in 2024 as a free agent to join PSV.

He has settled in there well, scoring 28 goals in his 93 matches and the team have won the Eredivisie in the two seasons he has been there.

Son Heung-min

Son is South Korea’s most famous player and so it should come as no surprise that even after leaving Europe, he is still part of their plans.

Son has been playing his football in the US where he is tearing it up for LA FC, scoring seven and assisting 12 in his first season and he is still part of the Korea set-up.

He made his debut back in 2010 and has made 153 appearances and scored 59 goals, both records for the national team.

There has been relatively little success for him though as he has only an Asian Cup runners-up medal to his name.

Takumi Minamino

The ex-Liverpool winger is surprisingly still only 31 even if his Anfield stint feels a long time ago.

While he struggled in England with both Liverpool and a brief loan stint with Southampton, Minamino has found a home in Monaco where he has 19 goals in 95 league games.

He is also still a part of the Japanese national team having made his debut back in 2015.