Watch Pele's 1000th goal: 50th anniversary of the Brazilian legend's iconic 'O Milesimo'
In an era when the goal-scoring exploits Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi continue to amaze football fans the world over, November 19th is a date to remember a record neither great will match.
- Scroll down for video footage of his goal
Because exactly 50 years ago today, Pele scored his 1,000th career goal at the age of just 29.
Playing for his beloved Santos against Vasco da Gama in front of a partisan 80,000-strong crowd at Rio de Janeiro's Maracana stadium, the iconic number 10 brought up the astounding milestone with an ice cool penalty - although he recently joked VAR would have overturned the decision to award it.
'O Milesimo' was met with crazy scenes of celebration as the Brazilian legend, who would win a record third World Cup the following summer, was lifted aloft by fans invading the field.
His brilliance on the field was matched by his humility off it, saying: "I don't need a party to celebrate this. For me it is much more important to help poor children and those in need, I'm thinking above all of the kind of Christmas those people are going to spend."
Some years later Pele said: "A few days before the goal I was in Santos and I saw some kids trying to steal cars and I said: 'Hey boys what are you doing?' They tried to justify it by saying they would only target cars from Sao Paulo, so I told them they shouldn't rob anyone at all. That was the message from my 1,000th goal."
Amusingly, Pele seemed to engineer events so that his 1000th goal would be scored on the big stage of the Maracana.
Three days earlier Santos played away from home against Bahia and after keeping his tally on 999, he said: "I don't want to annoy the Baianos, but I wanted the goal to be in an official game, so I stopped shooting at goal in that game. I was afraid the players would just let it in."
Scroll down for Ronaldo & Messi comparisons
There will always be questions raised over the validity of Pele's final Guinness World Record goals tally of 1,281 goals in 1,363 games as many of those included friendlies that Santos played in.
International football research web site RSSSF (Rec. Sport Soccer Statistics Foundation) instead puts Pele's total at 767 in 831 official matches, which means he's third on the all-time list.
Top of the charts is Czech striker Josef Bican with 805 goals in 530 games in a career interrupted by World War II while Brazil's 1994 World Cup winner Romario is next with 772 goals in 994.
Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskas - 746 goals from 754 games - is fourth ahead of German great Gerd Muller, who bagged 735 from 793.
It might be possible for Cristiano Ronaldo, now 34, to surpass Pele's official mark before he retires as he currently has 706 from 984, including the second highest international tally of 99, while Lionel Messi is back on 682 from 836.
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