Romario - Man of 1000 Goals

He scored tap-ins. He scored one on ones. He scored from long range. He scored volleys, chips and headers. He scored flicks. He scored the outrageous, the routine and the sublime. Left foot, right foot, outside of the foot and toe pokes. Be they in World Cups, European Cups or youth tournaments, over an illustrious career that has spanned some 23 years 'O Baixinho' (The Shorty) otherwise known as Romário has scored them all.

Seller of a million cough sweets, (just imagine all the sore throats of Brazilian commentators constantly screaming ‘Goooooooooool’ over the years) he is even rumoured to have scored as many times off the pitch as on it. However, all good things must come to an end and on Monday the cheeky Brazilian maestro decided to call time on his playing career at 42 years of age. The announcement was made with uncharacteristically little fanfare for a man who throughout his career has seemed unable to do anything without a certain degree of flamboyance and style. It was at a DVD launch that Romário simply announced, "Officially I'm not playing any more. I've stopped. My time is up. Everything has been a lot of fun," and for a player whose thousandth goal caused such furore in Brazil that the game in which he scored it for Vasco da Gama against Sporting Recife had to be stopped for twenty minutes to allow fans to celebrate, his final statement was relatively low-key.

Despite the unceremonious retirement, Romário de Souza Faria’s time in football has been anything but low profile. An assassin in the penalty area gifted with exemplary technique and a wonderful turn of pace, he made his professional debut playing for Vasco da Gama back in 1985, and went on to play for PSV Eindhoven, Barcelona and Valencia, as well as experiencing three further stints at Vasco, where he is considered one of the club’s finest ever footballers even though he also played for their bitter Rio de Janeiro rivals Flamengo and Fluminense. His goal ratio remained consistently excellent wherever he went, averaging almost a goal a game at PSV for example (163 goals in 165 appearances), and even as a 39-year old back at Vasco in 2005 he defied critics who claimed he was too slow and old by becoming the league’s top scorer for a third time.

Internationally Romário is recognised as one of the greatest strikers ever to emerge from Brazil because of this incredible goal scoring record (56 goals in 73 appearances for the Seleção) and he was instrumental in Brazil’s 1994 World Cup triumph, a year in which he was also named World Player of the Year.

Over the years Romário has also never been far away from controversy be it over drugs, the nature of his 1000 goals or his penchant for fast living. A sucker for the high life, he was known to detest training, even going so far as to say that he played better football after a night out on the razz. A party animal who regularly fell out with coaches and missed training to spend time in the company of beauty queens, it is Sir Bobby Robson, his coach at PSV who perhaps described Romário best when he called him, ‘the most difficult character I have ever had to work with…[but] also one of the most wonderful footballers I have ever encountered.’

In the football world, the one they call 'O Baixinho' will be missed as much for his sheer unpredictability as for his on-field genius.