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Archive for October, 2009

Romario, like many Brazilian footballers, came from a poor background. He was first spotted by a small club in Rio and later to the junior team of Brazilian giants Vasco da Gama. It was here his talents first started to come to national attention and he was called up to the 1988 Brazilian Olympic team. He was a short forward with razor sharp reactions and an excellent touch. His lack of height did not prevent him scoring many goals with his head, indeed he scored the winner in the 1994 World Cup semi final with a header.

Romario starred in the tournament, ending it top scorer, and was now in the sites of some of the big European clubs. PSV Eindhoven of Holland won the race to sign the 22 year old, who went on to win 3 league titles and becoming one of the hottest properties in world football. In 1993 he was snapped up by Spanish giants Barcelona, where he joined an array of household names such as Ronald Koeman and Michael Laudrup. In the 1993-94 season he was top scorer with an impressive 30 goals in 33 games. The World Cup of 1994 was looming and Romario was expected to lead the line in Brazil’s quest for a first World Cup in 24 years.

During the competition he formed a deadly partnership with Bebeto and scored 5 goals. Sadly in the final he failed to get a sixth goal which would have seen him share the golden boot with Stoichkov and Salenko (who’d scored an amazing 5 goals in one game against Cameroon). Still Brazil won the World Cup and Romario was given much credit for the success. He was named world player of the year later in the year, beating off competition from team-mate Stoichkov and Roberto Baggio – both of whom had also had superb World Cups.

After problems with Barcelona and approaching his 30th birthday, Romario moved back to Brazil to Flamengo. This marks the start of a decline in Romario’s career. He had a further brief spell in Spain with Valencia in 1998. He missed the ‘98 world cup through injury, which was a massive disappointment for the player and probably his last chance to appear in the competition as he’d turned 32 years of age earlier in the year.

Romario played out most of the remainder of his career in Brazil, though had short and somewhat mixed spells in the USA and Australia.

Romario was credited as one of the few players to score 1000 goals, his milestone being reached playing for Vasco da Gama against Sport Recife.