Brazil's old man chases 1,000 goalsThe star of the 1994 World Cup is still playing at 41, in a bid to match Pele and two others who have passed an extraordinary goalscoring landmark.
At times it can seem as if everyone you meet in Brazil is speaking about the same thing: 'Romario - Rumo ao Milesimo Gol'. Romario - and his quest for a thousand goals. The former Brazil striker is one of football's most flamboyant characters. He rose from the slums of northern Rio de Janeiro to play for, among others, PSV Eindhoven and Barcelona. Today, he commands a huge property empire and lives in a luxury apartment in Barra da Tijuca, a beachside enclave for Rio de Janeiro's nouveaux riches. He has a fleet of top-of-the-range cars and is rumoured to be buying a giant yacht. Yet still Romario wants more. More goals, to be precise. Two of them. Today, in a derby against arch-rivals Flamengo, Vasco da Gama's 41-year-old striker could score his 1,000th goal.
Romario is the third-highest scorer for Brazil, with 71 goals from 85 appearances. He won the World Cup with (and, some would argue, for) his country in 1994, the Spanish league with Barcelona and the Dutch championship twice with PSV. But he last played for Brazil in April 2005, the year when he celebrated his thirty-ninth birthday and, with 22 goals, was the top scorer in the Brazilian championship. Since then he has become a nomad, turning out for sides as far away as Miami FC and Adelaide United in what cynics say is an increasingly undignified attempt to reach his target.
In January he returned to Brazil for one final attempt at the record, with Rio based Vasco, his first club. The veteran striker claimed he needed 13 more goals to achieve his ambition. If he reached that target he would become the third Brazilian and fourth player ever to do so, alongside Pele, who netted 1,281 goals in 1,363 professional games, Arthur Friedenreich, whose Brazilian record Pele set out to beat, and Hungary's Ferenc Puskas.
There is probably no greater example of Romario's cunning than his quest to score his 1,000th goal. Brazil's media greeted the announcement with scepticism, joking that many of the 'career' goals were scored in beach kickabouts. This is not true, although the tally does include goals scored in friendlies and at junior level.
'Romario's only hope is that football has changed,' stated Marcos Eduardo Neves, a football writer for the Jornal do Brasil, arguing that the game's globalisation had deprived Brazilian clubs of their top players, allowing an aged Romario to shine in the low quality home league. 'Europe takes the juice and spits out the stone,' Neves argued, 'leaving Brazil with people either on the rise or in decline.' Romario, he went on, was unmistakably in the second category.
