Pure Goal Scorers Are a Dying Breed

Goal scorers are the shining gems of soccer, the players who light up a game, who bring a stadium to its feet, and who adorn the sport with most of its magic moments.I mean the specialist goal scorers: the strikers, the ones who have made an art of goal scoring. Sadly, we don’t have as many of them as we used to have. Look at the tactical formations used by most teams these days, and you’ll see why. Where there used to be at least three forwards, there is now often just one.Back in the 1960s, England’s Jimmy Greaves was as fluent and spectacular a goal scorer as there has ever been. He made it look easy, with 422 goals in 604 pro games. But at the end of his career, he knew that something was changing, and lamented that “football tactics are becoming as complicated as the formula for splitting the atom.”Modern tactics require players to be all-rounders — polyvalent, as the late Coutinho used to tell his Brazilian national team players, few of whom had any idea what he was talking about — and all of them should be able to score goals. Under that approach, a player dedicated to one talent only, even one as important as goal scoring, is something of a luxury. So the goal scorers are squeezed out of the game, and the number of goals scored inevitably declines.Before the breed disappears altogether — and I’m only half joking — allow me to take a look at four such players. All of them, as it happens, are over the age of 30, and all of them are living proof of how difficult life has become for goal scorers.There’s the Spaniard Raúl: Almost unique for a superstar in today’s game, he has played all 14 years of his pro career with one club, Real Madrid, scoring 328 goals in 735 games.But goal scorers must keep on scoring goals, and last season, Raúl’s goal scoring sagged so badly that Real considered loaning him (their captain!) to another club. But he stayed with Real, and this season, he is off to his best start in nine years, with eight goals in 15 games.But his recovery is not without controversy. He has converted his bedroom to a hypoxic chamber, which allows him to simulate high altitude conditions for training. This training increases the number of red blood cells, and it is a performance-enhancing method that the World Anti-Doping Agency has condemned — though not banned — as violating “the spirit of sport.”The oldest of my goal scorers, the Brazilian Romário, has also run into a drug problem. At age 41, Romário is still playing, still scoring — and still stirring controversy. He is accused of failing a drug test in Brazil in October, when his blood showed traces of finasteride. When questioned about the drug, a balding Romario said, “Okay, I was using it, but as a hair restorer.” Finasteride is used to treat baldness, but it’s on WADO’s banned list, because it can be used to mask the presence of anabolic steroids.As the results of further tests are awaited, Romário’s career continues, with his appointment as player-coach of Vasco da Gama. And what a career he has had, one that climaxed in 1994 when he was a key member of the Brazil team that won the World Cup, and was voted FIFA World Player of the Year.In May of this year, he joined the small elite group of players (which includes Pelé) who have scored 1,000 goals in pro soccer — except that many insisted that Romário’s method of counting included some dubious goals scored in youth tournaments.Another Brazilian, Ronaldo — a three-time winner of the World Player of the Year award — has made news on the hair front, by suddenly appearing with a full head of hair, when throughout most of his 14-year career, he has presented a totally bald, skinhead image. Last year, in one of the most emotional moments of an otherwise bland World Cup, Ronaldo scored his 15th World Cup goal against Ghana, breaking the record held by the German Gerd Müller.But Ronaldo’s career has lately been injury-plagued, and he also stands accused of being overweight. Acquired by A.C. Milan in January — they paid Real Madrid $11 million for his contract — he has played just once for his new club this season. His attempts to regain fitness for the FIFA Club World Cup (currently being played in Japan) have been set back by a calf injury picked up in training last week.The last of my goal scorers is an Italian, the 34-year-old Filippo “Pippo” Inzaghi. If there could be such a thing as an invisible goal scorer, then Pippo would be the one. He has scored his goals quietly but regularly throughout a 16-year pro career, in which he has played with seven Italian clubs. His tally is 226 goals in 479 games. Inzaghi has acquired a reputation as a secondary player: He has played in three World Cups, but never as the first-choice striker. He was a member of the Italian team that won last year’s World Cup, but played for only 30 minutes in one game, scoring one goal. At A.C. Milan, his current club, he has often been on the bench, with Alberto Gilardino preferred in the lone-striker role.Then, almost out of the blue last week, Pippo proved unarguably that he is a quite extraordinary match winner. His goal gave Milan a 1–0 win over Celtic of Scotland, but it also gave Inzaghi a place among the goal scoring greats. It was his 63rd goal in European competitions, breaking yet another record held by Müller.Both Inzaghi and Müller, and many other strikers, have been ridiculed as one-dimensional players. It was once said scornfully of Müller that “all he does is score goals”. The great Dutch star Johan Cruyff similarly remarked of Inzaghi, “actually he can’t play soccer at all. He’s just always in the right position.” It sounds simple enough, but it is a precious, razor-sharp instinct that not many possess. Sadly, it seems to be one that is undervalued in today’s soccer.pgardner@nysun.com

Pure Goal Scorers Are a Dying Breed

Pure Goal Scorers Are a Dying Breed

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