Video: Romario's 1000th goal (plus his top 11 proper goals)

Filed in archive Players on May 22, 2007

Romario finally scored his 1,000th goal this weekend. It is a great achievement, and well done to him, but an achievement tainted by the fact that all he's really been playing for in the last couple of years is to reach that total.

Surely a player's total career goals should be just that, the number of goals you scored in the natural course of your career, not a target to reach before you retire while you travel the globe playing in the American minor leagues and spending brief spells in Australian competitions just to say you scored a certain amount.

Take Gary Lineker for example, he finished his England career just one short of equalling Bobby Charlton's records as top scorer in a Three lions shirt, but he set his retirement date and stuck to it. He could have played a few more games just to equal Charlton's record, but didn't. Because football's a team game and individual achievements should always be secondary, no matter how important they are. For that reason I found Romario playing just to reach the 1,000 mark a bit distasteful.

But as a reminder of what a great player Romario was in his day (when he was just a great player, and not a bit of a media circus) check out his top 11 goals of all time, starting about 1:45 into the above video.