The Story Of The Striker Who Spent Every Night Partying And Still Outscored Everyone

So… listen to this… Romário says that when he was born, God looked down on him and said “he’s the man” so while most footballers dedicate every single second of their lives to training… Romário was just built different… When they asked him about it, he literally replied: “I’m not an athlete, I’m a goalscorer so why would I practice? I already know what to do”. .

. But you see that wasn’t even all of it… Romário went against every single one of football's 10 commandments… He didn’t even sleep before his matches… Every night he was simply too busy just partying in some nightclub and the craziest of all is that after a while, his managers didn’t care, because as he said it himself: “The night is my friend… When I go out I’m happy and when I’m happy I score goals” and as crazy as that may sound it was true… Ask any one of his managers and you’ll get crazy stories of him showing up to a match still wearing the same clothes from the night before, looking like he didn’t even care for the game… but then, the moment the whistle was heard, it’s like he had been hypnotized and for 90 minutes he transformed into a goalscoring monster… Gary Neville literally said that Romário was “the scariest thing he saw in his life”. .

. But what I always found funny about this, is that just because he partied so much, everyone assumes that he was some degenerate drunk, but in reality, he didn’t even drink, or smoke, or anything like that… as Stoichkov once said: “Romário only cares about two things: football and fucking”. .

. and I mean he wasn’t lying… Even back when he was 19, despite having just won the Under 20 Copa America as the top scorer, Romário shockingly ended up being left out of the list for the Under 20 World Cup… Why? Because his manager was annoyed that during their training sessions, he spent more time hitting on girls in the stands than actually doing any work… But you have to realize that even at that age, he was already a phenomenon… even his teammate Roberto Dinamite, who was to many Vasco’s all time greatest player… could tell Romário would completely eclipse him, saying: “Do you have any idea what it felt like to play alongside a 20 year old Romário?

You just needed to get the ball to his feet… Out of every 3 balls that he touched, 2 would end up in the back of the net”. . .

And so, by the end of the season, not only was he already the Carioca Championship’s top scorer, but he had won the regional cup, scoring twice in the final against Flamengo and convincing the entire country that he was indeed “the man”. . .

with the fans begging for his inclusion in the 1986 World Cup… But even though that would not happen, something else would… The introduction of Romário’s greatest nemesis, Bebeto… If Romário was a maverick, Bebeto was a god fearing model citizen… It was chaos vs order… And even though Romário would take the first round, not just topping the goalscoring charts again but beating him in the final of the Carioca Championship… The year after that, Bebeto had the nerve to outscore him, so Romário was left with no choice but to humiliate Bebeto’s Flamengo in the final by lobbing the keeper, damn near walking the ball into the net… and finally putting Bebeto in his place, telling the press: “I’m only 22, but you can quote me on this, by the time I’m done, I will have scored 1000 goals”… Only 8 years after Pelé’s retirement, Romário had crowned himself as his successor… But now that he had talked the talk, it was only a matter of walking the walk… and the opportunity to take another jab at Bebeto came just a few months later, when both their names were on the list for the Olympics… Rightfully, with Romário leading the rivalry, he was the one on the starting line up, but with Bebeto biting at his ankles, scoring damn near every time he came on… Romário was forced to go above and beyond, scoring 7 goals across the 6 matches he played, the highest tally since the 1960s, settling himself as by far the best player at the tournament, despite his team crumbling before the unstoppable Soviet Union… Just like that, Romário had become the world's most sought after young player, leading European Champions PSV, to spend 6 million dollars on his signing, making him the most expensive player in the history of the Brazilian Championship… But while Romário wasted no time at PSV, stepping foot into the locker room and immediately establishing himself as the star player with 26 goals in 34 games, taking the league and cup titles, even scoring twice against Real in the Champions League… Well, let’s just say that Bebeto also made the most of his time alone in Brazil, shockingly signing with Vasco to replace Romário and doing what he could never do… Leading Vasco to the league title they had been chasing for 15 years… And again, you know what was the most ironic thing in all of this was… Once they were done, they had the Copa America to play for… And with both shocking the nation with their performances, the manager felt he couldn’t leave either of them on the bench, meaning now they would be competing for the spotlight side by side… so it became an all out battle for who could score the most… but even then, no matter if Bebeto managed to score twice as much as Romário… It was him who scored the goal that allowed Brazil to take the trophy after a 40 year long drought… So, truly, who had won the duel? . .

. Well, as crazy as it may sound, no one… their greatest moments came on the rare occasions where they joined forces… They left the entire nation wondering, what would happen if they managed to put their rivalry aside… and to see that, they just had to wait… not one… but five years… Because even though the world cup was to be played next summer… Romário went to PSV, scored 31 goals in 26 games… and midway through the season he fractured his ankle… And although he still managed to top the league’s goal scoring charts despite missing out on 14 matches, PSV still ended up losing the league title by a single point… They were so dependent on him, that even when he was spotted by the press, playing on a beach in Rio when he was supposed to have been injured, they were forced to just forgive him… After all they already knew what kind of player he was, the stories about his home in Eindhoven had become the stuff of legend. There were rumors that he had built a miniature version of Copacabana in his backyard, with sand imported from Brazil, a footvolley court and a horde of friends constantly blasting Brazilian funk… They knew they couldn’t contain him… By the time the World Cup began, things had only gotten worse for Brazil… Despite somehow still being called up, Romário could barely get off the bench and then… Well then Bebeto got injured as well and the result was simple… the worst world cup performance in the history of the country… And to make matters worse, the theme of recurring injuries would not go away any time soon… 7 more months would go by, before Romário was back to full fitness and though somehow he still managed to lead PSV to the title, showing up out of nowhere to score a brace against Ajax that allowed them to leapfrog into first place, eventually even beating Bergkamp to become the league’s top scorer award despite missing almost half of the season… then he broke his leg as well and ended up living what was simply the worst season of his career… It wouldn’t be until 1992, almost two years after his initial injury, that he would be back in full fitness, but by then, it is no exaggeration to say that some thought it was the end… But, obviously, it wasn’t… Then, out of nowhere, it all clicked once again and Romário started the season, with a streak of 19 goals in 13 matches… including 8 in just 4 starts in the Champions League, which allowed him to take the top scorer award despite getting knocked out in the first round… But don’t let any of this convince you that he had gone soft, or calmed down… Throughout all of this drama, Romário was still partying every weekend, even before match days… There was even one time where he just went missing, not a word from him for 3 days, then he shows up in training, they ask him what happened and he tells them: “It was minus 17 degrees and you come knocking on my door?

? Of course I didn’t open it, I was hibernating, my friend”. .

. But again what could they do about it, as Bobby Robson said: “He was pathetically lazy, but I had to pick him, if I left him out, I might miss a hat trick! He would score goals from impossible angles, we would all just raise our hands in the air and ask: “How did he do that?

? ? ””.

. . .

but you know who else was watching him and wondering just that? Johan Cruyff. You see, Barcelona had only won the league twice in the last 30 years, everyone in Catalonia dreamt of the day they’d win it again and if you wanna make your dreams come true, then you gotta build a “dream team”… And for Cruyff, with Stoichkov, Koeman and Laudrup already in the roster… Romário would be the cherry on top… a cherry that cost him around 10 million euros… not just the most expensive transfer in the history of the league… but arguably more expensive than the other 3 put together… So, after 165 goals in 167 matches at PSV, the first thing Romário did in Barcelona was promise yet even more goals… telling everyone that he would score 30 goals in La Liga… coincidentally, one more than Bebeto had scored for Coruna the year before… Yeah… You thought that rivalry was over?

No way… Not only was Bebeto waiting for him in Spain, he was already the league’s top scorer, leading Deportivo to a 3rd place finish, despite them having just been promoted the year before… Jump starting the era of Super Depor… a team that would finish in La Liga’s top 3 in 8 out of the following 12 seasons… But if Bebeto felt secure then… it wouldn’t last long… because right in Romário’s first La Liga match, he scored his first hat trick and only a month after that, he had already scored another, this time vs Atletico… But by Christmas, even though Romário had finished second in the Fifa World Player Of The Year, somehow Deportivo were still in front, so he had to turn it all up a notch and 8 days into the year, he scored a hat trick against Real Madrid… it was only that second time that happened since the 1960s… But if that was legendary, what would happen in February would be even more impressive, as Cruyff himself would tell the story: “He came to me, asking if he could skip practice, it must have been the Carnival in Brazil or something… and knowing him, I decided to make the most of it, I told him: “If you score twice tomorrow, I’ll give you two days off”. . .

20 minutes into the match, he had already scored his second and immediately signaled to me, asking me to be subbed off… He told me “Coach, my plane takes off in an hour”. . .

. Look, It’s hard to determine what game this was and Cruyff definitely exaggerated some of it, but if I’m right, then 6 days later, he was already back in Barcelona, scoring a hat trick again and over the course of the next month, he would total 13 goals in 8 matches, including yet another hat trick against Atletico… But again… The dream team was still only in second place behind Deportivo and it wouldn’t be until the 70th minute of the last match of the season when Romário scored to put Barcelona 3 to 2 in front of Sevilla… that he would not only snatch the title from Bebeto’s hands… but score his 30th league goal, just as he had promised… And to make this all the more embarrassing for Bebeto… The chance to clutch the title was handed to him in the last minute of his very own match through a penalty, but he was too afraid to take it, handed it to Miroslav Dukic… and he missed… Once again, they were complete opposites, Bebeto choked while Romário clutched the title… But don’t think for a second that Romário’s season was all roses either… When the dream team reached the final of the Champions League… well, let’s just say a nightmare was awaiting them… a 4 nil defeat to AC Milan, still to this day one of the competition’s most embarrassing results… but thankfully for Romário, redemption was waiting for him in the form of the 1994 World Cup… Five years on from the first time Romário and Bebeto had shown us glimpses of what they could do together, they now had no choice but to embrace each other and it was only possible thanks to Bebeto… You know why? Because almost a year earlier, Romário had been banned from the national team and the only reason he was brought back was that Bebeto himself put their rivalry aside and convinced the coach to do so… After all, it was the last match of qualification and for the first time in history, Brazil could not afford to lose it or they would have been out of the world cup, but thankfully, Bebeto’s bet paid off… Romário promised the team he would score twice and as he said it himself: “Ask anyone who was at the Maracanã that night… They’ll tell you it was the greatest match any footballer has ever played… On a scale from 0 to 10, I was an 11”.

. . and just like that, Brazil was off to the USA… But can you even imagine the pressure?

It had been 24 years since Brazil had last won the world cup, rumor had it that they were no longer the hometown of football… and despite all that happened, Bebeto and Romário still hated one another so much they even refused to sit beside each other on the plane… But in the most twisted turn of events, in the weeks before the tournament, Bebeto’s pregnant wife was held at gunpoint in an attempt to kidnap his brother and even worse, Romário’s father was indeed kidnapped for 6 days… and somehow… this brought the two together… for the first time ever, they bonded and the result was out of this world… In the first match, Bebeto took the cross and Romário scored. In the second, Romário opened the scoresheet and then Bebeto scored off of his rebound. In the third, Romário scored with no help… And by the time the knockout stage began, it was finally Romário who assisted Bebeto and the entire country could see that the rivalry had evaporated, as Bebeto celebrated, everyone could read his lips, he grabbed Romário’s face and shouted: “Eu te amo”.

. . From there on out, nothing could stop them… Against the Netherlands, Bebeto assisted Romário yet again and then dribbled past the keeper for the second… In the semi finals, Romário scored the only goal… and in the final, to the great despair of Baggio, the football gods looked down upon Brazil once more and allowed them to win the shootout after a goalless draw… Once the medals had been laid down on their chest, there were two things no one could argue against: Romário had been the best player in the tournament and the two were easily one of the greatest duos football ever witnessed… But strangely enough, thanks to the rise of Ronaldo and Rivaldo, they would barely ever share the pitch again… Still, in total, in the 23 times in which they did, they went undefeated and were responsible for 33 out of the 48 goals scored by Brazil… Regardless, even if by the end of the year, Romário had won the FIFA World Player Of The Year award, the situation at Barcelona quickly deteriorated… Laudrup left for Real Madrid, Romário’s relationship with Cruyff got more and more out of control as he became even more eccentric following his World Cup win and after a 5 nil defeat at the hands of Real Madrid and only 6 months into his second season he was already moving back to Brazil… “looking for happiness”.

. . which is another of saying that he was partying non stop, as he said it himself: “The first thing I told every club president was: Look, I have… difficulty waking up early, so I only train in the afternoon” and so it was… I mean how could any team in Brazil say no to that, he was the best striker on the planet!

When Flamengo finally signed him, he literally announced himself saying “I have a message to the supposed “top scorers” of this league, like my fans always chant: “Romário is coming, the boogeyman is coming for you”. . .

but although he kept scoring like there was no tomorrow, Flamengo was a disaster… Right on that first season, on one hand they finished the first stage of the Brasileirão in last place and on the other they made it to the final of the Libertadores… And so, the next year, Romário just freaked out, demolished everyone to take the Carioca title, scoring 11 more goals than any other player, only to then rampantly return to Spain, strangely joining Valencia… playing 5 games for the club, scoring 4 goals, then quickly getting on the wrong side of Aragonés, getting injured and then getting loaned back to Flamengo after less than 2 months… Eventually taking his 3rd Carioca top scorer award in a row, only to move to Valencia again, who were now coached by Valdano who didn’t seem to mind his crazy lifestyle nowhere near as much… which led to this absurd moment where Romário got caught by the press partying at 7 a. m. the night after scoring a brace, telling them: “This is nothing, last week I scored a hat trick and stayed out until 8 a.

m. ” leading the Valencia fans to begin chanting “Go party, Romário, Go Party”. .

. It really seemed everything was working out, but then Valdano was replaced by Ranieri only 3 matches into the season… Regardless, before anything happened there, it was time for the Confederations Cup, where Romário finally paired up with Ronaldo, with both of them scoring a hat trick in the final, as Romário broke the competition’s all time goalscoring record, with 7 goals in 4 matches… But only 6 days after that, he was already back at Valencia cutting ties with Ranieri and… you guessed it… moving back to Flamengo, where he just seemed to keep getting in trouble, first pissing off the Brazilian Federation enough that they used a minor knock as an excuse so send him back home right before the 1998 World Cup started and then getting his contract terminated at Flamengo after being spotted at a nightclub hours after an historic defeat, watching his teammates conquer the Copa Mercosul without him, even though he was the one responsible to get him there, having scored 8 goals in the first 7 matches… At this point, being already 34, there were rumors of a possible retirement but Romário shut everyone’s mouths, saying “Sometimes I think about it, but then I see these 20 something year olds… and they’re so bad that I tell myself there’s no way I can stop”. .

. So he signed with Vasco and proved that he meant every single one of those words, first taking revenge on Flamengo by putting 3 goals past them in the final of the Carioca, and then showing them he could do it all without them, winning the Copa Mercosul after completing a hat trick in injury time, to bring Vasco back from being 3 goals down in the final… and then taking the Brasileirão as the player of the tournament… finishing the year with 73 goals and 16 assists in 73 matches across club and country, leading many to claim that at 34, he was still the best player in the world… with Inter even coming for his signing, hoping he could replace Ronaldo while he was still injured… Still, the following year, a huge scandal took place after Romário rejected the chance to play the Copa America in order to get eye surgery, only for the procedure to get delayed, leading many, including national team manager Scolari to see it all as nothing but an excuse, eventually even excluding him from the 2002 World Cup as punishment which broke Romário's heart and almost killed his love for football, eventually even admitting that, at that point, he was only playing with the goal of reaching 1000 goals, getting into some trouble with the Vasco supporters and moving to Fluminense, where things just weren’t the same… even leading him to announce his retirement by his third year, only to go back on his word and move back to Vasco where, at 39 years of age, he managed to shock the world once again, finishing as the top scorer of the Brasileirão, with 22 goals, despite missing out on 10 out of the 21 away games, because he simply refused to travel that far for a match… which irritated Pelé so much that he publicly stated that Romário should just retire, but knowing that he was probably just afraid for his goalscoring record, Romário simply hit back, saying “All that comes out of Pelé’s mouth is shit. When he stays quiet, he’s like a poet, he should stick a shoe in his mouth, it’d be for the best”.

. .