Claudio Pizarro has been around a long time. When he scored his first Bundesliga goal, we mere mortals were worrying about Y2K, the legality of Napster and whether or not we fed our Tamagotchi. With his goal for Cologne against Stuttgart on Sunday, the Peruvian striker scored for the 20th consecutive calendar year in the Bundesliga.
Claudio Pizarro joined the Bundesliga in 1999 with Werder Bremen, scoring 38 goals in his first two seasons with the club, including 29 in league play. That earned the Peruvian a move to Bayern Munich, for whom he scored 125 goals over two stints with the German giants. Including two other spells with Werder Bremen and now with Cologne, Pizarro has scored 192 Bundesliga goals over the last 20 years.
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018Incredible @pizarrinha has now scored at least one #Bundesliga goal in each of the last 20 years. pic.twitter.com/a3NdMwRoB0— Bundesliga English (@Bundesliga_EN) March 5, 2018
Pizarro’s completely arbitrary accomplishment is nothing short of amazing. He managed to keep his streak going even though he spent a season with Chelsea in 2007-08, scoring two Premier League goals before returning to the Bundesliga. Because seasons do not follow our silly Gregorian calendars, Pizarro still scored in the Bundesliga in 2007 with Bayern and 2008 with Werder Bremen.
Pizarro is like the Energizer Bunny of the Bundesliga, although said bunny has been going for 10 years longer because those batteries are, like, really good. He was scoring goals before we even had HDTV; can you even imagine such a time? I mean look how grainy that footage is for the first goals, how did people even watch television?
What were you doing in 1999? If you’re anything like our target demographic, there’s a 50 percent chance you weren’t even born yet. If so, congratulations on living a life full of Claudio Pizarro goals — we can think of no better way to measure your life than by the goals scored by a man who had a bit role in the animated film “Coco.”
To commemorate this feat of longevity — and you for never having lived in a year in which Claudio Pizarro did not score in the Bundesliga — please enjoy this montage of Pizarro doing goals year after year.