Milla was forced to move around a lot as a young boy

Milla’s father was a railway worker, and their family had to move around a lot in Milla’s youth, but football was always a part of his life. He was nicknamed “Pele” as a boy, after the legendary Brazilian footballer.

He signed with his first club at the age of 13

A football child prodigy, Milla’s talent was evident from a very young age. He first signed with a local club in Douala at the age of 13, and went on to win his first league championship with another Douala club at the age of 18.

In his first World Cup experience for Cameroon, the team returned home unbeaten

Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions first appeared in the 1982 World Cup in Spain, the team’s first international appearance on the world stage. Milla was a key player for the Lions, helping them hold their own and remain unbeaten, despite exiting in the first round.

Though he wasn’t known internationally until 1990, Milla was named African Footballer of the Year in 1974

For his accomplishments with the Cameroonian team Tonnerre Yaoundé, Milla was named African Footballer of the Year in 1974. It was after this that Milla made the move to France, where he played first for Valenciennes, and later on for AS Monaco, Bastia, Saint-Étienne, and Montpellier.

Before the 1990 World Cup, Milla was playing for a local football team on the Reunion Islands

After announcing his retirement from the professional football world in 1988 (complete with memorable testimonials in front of more than 100,000 spectators), Milla went to the Reunion Islands for nine months. A friend of his owned a local football team that Milla began to play for, until Cameroonian President Paul Biya insisted that he rejoin the national side for the 1990 World Cup.

Following his incredible performance in the 1990 World Cup, the first and most serious offer Milla received was from Division Four team Walsall

Despite an incredible showing in the World Cup in which Milla helped lead his team to the quarter finals for the first time in African history, few teams made offers to the Cameroonian due to his advanced age. Walsall ended up not being able to pay the $1 million asking price for Milla, and he ended up playing for the Cameroonian side Tonnerre Yaounde.

Milla’s iconic dance around the goal post was completely spontaneous

In an interview, Milla confessed that his trademark goal celebration was entirely unplanned, “It came to me in the moment, in the stadium when I scored that first goal (against Romania). It was instinct. I couldn’t plan it before the tournament because I didn’t know if the coach was going to pick me to play, and I didn’t know if I was going to score a goal.”

Source: BBC.com

Milla remains the oldest goal scorer at a World Cup match

In the 1994 World Cup match against Germany, Milla scored a consolation goal against Russia in Cameroon’s 6-1 defeat at the age of 42. The game is better remembered for the Russian side’s Oleg Salenko, who became the first person to score five goals in a finals match. He has since lost the record as Africa’s oldest international player, when 43-year-old striker Kersley Appou appeared for Mauritius in the 2014 Africa Cup of Nations.

In 2007, Milla was named the best African player of the previous 50 years

In a vote by the Confederation of African Football, Milla was named Best African Player of the past 50 years, beating out other legends including Egyptian forward Mahmoud El Khatib and striker Hossam Hassan. This was among other notable honors. Brazilian legend Pelé named him one of the 125 greatest-living football players in 2004 as a part of the FIFA 100.

Milla was appointed an ambassador for UNAIDS in 2001

A long-time proponent of HIV and AIDS education and awareness, Milla was first named a roving ambassador by Cameroonian President Paul Biya in 1998. He then received the appointment to UNAIDS in 2001, where his work takes him across the globe.