Even at 40, the legendary Pepe can still score goals. More than Lewandowski, Sané or Rashford in the Champions League

When Pepe left Real Madrid in 2017, his career seemed to be slowly coming to an end. But the Portuguese stopper is still playing at the highest level today at the age of 40 and he’s even scoring in the Champions League.

Three Champions League titles with Real Madrid, a total of 10 years in a Los Blancos jersey. That’s how great a career Pepe left behind in the Spanish capital.

But at 33 years old in 2017, he has already started to be slowly overtaken in the hierarchy by the young Raphael Varane. So the experienced Portuguese went to Besiktas, presumably to finish his career.

He lasted two years in Turkey and returned home to Porto, from where he headed to Real Madrid in 2007. How much longer could the 35-year-old stopper play? It was a common question at the time.

That Pepe would be turning six in his sixth season and would celebrate his 41st birthday in February as a cornerstone of the starting line-up was probably not expected. And the legendary stopper probably doesn’t even think about the end of his career.

He has added goals to his defensive confidence recently. A month ago he scored in the Champions League against Antwerp, at the weekend he scored in the league against Casa Pia and on Wednesday he added another goal in the Champions League against Shakhtar.

So he scored two goals in the regular group, more than the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Angel Di María, Leroy Sané, Serge Gnabry. Or also than Raphinha and Marcus Rashford, all of whom have only one goal to their name.

Vinícius Junior, Lautaro Martínez, Bruno Fernandes, Kingsley Coman or his long-time Real Madrid teammate Sergio Ramos have scored the same number of goals as Pepe in the regular season.

Source: UEFA, Porto