Chinese Mandarin - Romario's 1,000th career goal surrounded by questions

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Romario's 1,000th career goal surrounded by questions

(Ticker)
Updated: 2007-05-22 08:44

RIO DE JANEIRO - It is somewhat fitting that joy over Romario's 1,000th
goal has been tempered by suspicion and a little derision.

While only the stoniest of hearts would deny one of the modern era's
greatest strikers one last hurrah, the controversial nature of the
'landmark' affords it a slightly hollow air.

As with Pele, the only other footballer to make four figures in his goals
tally, the mathematics involved are open to question.

Romario has included strikes from his pre-professional days and
exhibition games, and quite possibly those scored at his local park and
on his PlayStation, rendering the occasion of his 1,000th goal
meaningless in some senses.

His global pursuit of the goals needed to reach his self-appointed tally,
which has taken him from Rio to Adelaide via Miami, also has reeked of
desperation at times.

But Romario de Souza Faria deserves to be recognized as one of the game's
all-time greats - albeit a flawed one.

Sunday's 1,000th goal, scored from the penalty spot for Vasco da Gama
during their clash with Sporting Recife, was met with unbridled joy and a
pitch invasion in the stadium, and great happiness among his millions of
fans in Brazil generally.

And Romario was typically understated in his reaction. "It's an historic
landmark, not only for me, but for my parents, my family, my friends and
for Brazil as a whole," he said. "It was God who wanted the goal to go in
today."

But understatement is something which has rarely been associated with the
41-year-old striker, who throughout his career has drawn adoration from
fans with his goals, and fury from managers for his off-field antics.

He was once banned from the Brazilian national team by Carlos Alberto
Parreira after reacting angrily to being named as a substitute for a Copa
America match.

And he has at times appeared to view football as an irksome, if lucrative
distraction from drinking and cigar smoking.

However, even Romario's most blinkered detractors, and there are many,
would struggle to deny his genius for finding the net.

The statistics are telling.

A whopping 98 goals in 109 games for PSV Eindhoven, his first European
club, 34 in 46 for Barcelona and 41 in 46 during his first spell at Vasco
- a fit and motivated Romario was the very definition of a 'goal-machine'.

Adept at finding space where there appeared none, he had few peers as a
one-on-one finisher in his heyday and turned the toe-poke into an
art-form.

All those qualities were evident during his finest achievement, when he
scored five goals to spearhead Brazil's successful bid for the 1994 World
Cup in the United States.

That performance elevated Romario to the position of the world's greatest
player, but, remarkably, just two years later he was back in the relative
obscurity, at least in European eyes, of Brazilian football.

And his relatively short spell at the top of European club football, the
acid test for the planet's greatest talents, means his legacy will never
be what it could have been.

He may not have had the grace of Thierry Henry, the blistering pace of
Ronaldo or the sheer skill of Ronaldinho.

But Romario the arch poacher deserves his place in the pantheon of
footballing greats.

I'm sure he would raise a glass to that.

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