Roque Santa Cruz continues to score
Ex-Bayern star extends impressive series
April 18, 2024, 8:14 p.m
The knee is holding up and everything else is going great: Roque Santa Cruz not only scores a decisive goal in his home country of Paraguay – he has now scored continuously in professional football for 26 years. He is now 42 years old and his club is on the way to the championship.
He hits and hits and hits. Roque Santa Cruz is now 42 years old – and still extremely dangerous. The former Bayern Munich striker, to whom Sportfreunde Stiller once dedicated the hit “Ich, Roque”, scored a goal that night in his native Paraguay – and not just any goal.
Roque Santa Cruz became German champion five times with Bayern.
With his goal for Libertad to make the final score 1-1 (0-1) in the city derby at Nacional Asuncion (90th + 1), Santa Cruz has now scored at least one goal every year since 1998. This is probably unique in the professional sector worldwide.
Santa Cruz, who had come on as a substitute seven minutes earlier, showed his nose for goal for the umpteenth time: as soon as the ball was played to the right side, he suspected that seconds later a cross would sail into the penalty area. He sprinted off, a few moments later stood in the right place and held out his foot on the five-pointer.
“… I wanted to change that”
League leaders Libertad remained unbeaten in their 13th game of the season. Santa Cruz joined the team after leaving local rivals Olimpia 2022. Why is he still playing? “Many boys here in Paraguay had viewed me (…) as an idol – but never seen them live! I wanted to change that,” he recently told “Sport Bild”.
So Santa Cruz moved back home in 2016 and “actually only wanted to play for six more months.” But because it ran and ran, it has now turned into almost eight years. Thanks to iron discipline, his knee, which was so vulnerable during his Bayern days, is now holding up again, explained Santa Cruz about his golden autumn as a footballer. “It also motivates me that my sons, two of whom are already at university, can still see their dad playing well.”
The 2001 Champions League winner has four children – and takes great pleasure in “torturing” them with their father’s former heroic deeds. He reported cheerfully, “I always play his song to my sons in the car so that they know the song well.”