A thousand times yes: Meet Túlio Maravilha, the 44-year-old striker who never gave up

As final chapters go, it perhaps wasn’t quite the glamorous affair he had spent so many years dreaming about. No Globo television cameras. No Maracanã. No Botafogo shirt. No, this was destined to happen here, on this bumpy scrubland pitch so typical of the footballing hinterland that operates a few levels and a few light years below the glitz of the Seleção.

But for Túlio Maravilha, nothing else mattered but the numbers. For days and months and years and decades he had counted. One more here. Two more there. Tick followed tock followed tick followed tock. Even if the passage of time had begun to make a mockery of his nickname, he would never admit it.

Even at 44, bones creaking and hair thinning, he was still Túlio the Marvel. And he still had history to make.

Read the rest of this article, on the latest man to join Brazilian football's prestigious 1000 club, on the Yahoo! Eurosport site.