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Romário

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Romário
Personal information
Full name Romário de Souza Faria
Height 1.67 m (5 ft 5 in)
Position(s) Centre Forward
Team information
Current team
 Vasco da Gama
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 2005

Romário de Souza Faria (born January 29, 1966), better known simply as Romário (Romario), is a legendary Brazilian football center forward who helped the Brazil national team win the 1994 FIFA World Cup and has been one of the most prolific strikers in the world since the 1990s, having had successful tenures with European clubs PSV Eindhoven and FC Barcelona, and in Brazil with CR Vasco da Gama. His professional career has extended past age 40, an age by which most professional footballers have retired.

Romário is pursuing his 1000th goal, a mark officially obtained only by former Brazilian attacker Pelé. He is the third highest goalscorer in the history of the Brazilian team, as well as the second highest scorer of all time in the Brazilian League, in which he has finished as the top scorer six times. He was selected the FIFA World Player of the Year in 1994 and is catalogued as one of the greatest stars in the history of the game by FIFA.[4]

Romário was named as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers as part of FIFA's 100th anniversary celebration in March 2004. Former Argentina international player Diego Maradona, in his autobiography Yo soy El Diego, described Romário as an "incredible finisher" adding that he had not seen a striker like him, and mentioning that Romário would be in his all-time "dream team" without any hesitation.

Club career

Born in Rio de Janeiro, of very humble beginnings, Romário started his career playing for Vasco da Gama (becoming one of the best footballers of the club in the last two decades) where he won two State Championships (1987/88). After being scouted by Piet de Visser, he played for PSV Eindhoven between 1988 and 1992, winning the Dutch League in 1989, 1991 and 1992. He moved to Spain's FC Barcelona for the 1993-1994 season, in which, along with players like Hristo Stoichkov, Jose Mari Bakero, Josep Guardiola, Michael Laudrup and Ronald Koeman, he helped the club win the League, while becoming the season's top goalscorer with 30 goals in 33 matches.

Romário was named FIFA World Player of the Year in 1994, after being the runner-up in 1993. In 1995 he returned to Brazil to play for Flamengo. He spent the next year in Valencia. In 1998, he missed out the World Cup and then returned to Flamengo until 1999.

He played for Vasco da Gama again in 2000, winning the Mercosur Cup, the Brazilian League, the South American and Brazilian Footballer of the Year award. From 2002 until 2004 he played for Fluminense. On October 21, 2004 he was fired from the club after a conflict with the coach. He then went back to play for the team he started at, Vasco da Gama. In 2005, at nearly 40 years of age, Romário scored 22 goals in the Brazilian Championship, making him the league's top goalscorer.

In the beginning of 2006, he joined Miami FC along with former 1994 FIFA World Cup teammate Zinho. He helped Miami FC reach their first ever USL First Division Playoffs, scoring 18 league goals in 23 appearances for the team. He then was a member of the Australian A-League club Adelaide United FC. He played his first match for Adelaide United FC on November 25, 2006 against the Central Coast Mariners. His short stint in Adelaide United FC has been criticized with many United fans bemoaning that his selection is purely a commercial exercise to the detriment of the team. Romario found form in his final game with the club on December 15th 2006 when he scored his only goal in the A-League. He is now back with the Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama which has a "Romario 1,000 Project".[5]

National team

As a member of the Brazilian national team, Romário won the silver Olympic medal in Seoul in 1988, scoring seven goals. He was part of the Brazilian squad in the World Cups of 1990 and 1994. He scored 55 goals in 70 international matches, being the third highest goalscorer in the history of the Brazilian team behind Pelé and Ronaldo. He was a reserve in the 1990 World Cup, playing only 66 minutes in one match, against Scotland. Brazil was eliminated in second round by Argentina.

1994 World Cup

In 1993, during Romário's successful season at Barcelona, he was called to the national team for the Copa America. During one of Brazil's matches, coach Carlos Alberto Parreira left Romário as a reserve, after which he expressed his dissatisfaction, saying he would not have come over from Spain if he had known he was not going to play. These declarations caused Parreira to ban Romário from the Brazilian team.[6]

Brazil played the first seven matches of the 1994 World Cup qualification without Romário, and suffered their first loss ever in World Cup qualifying against Bolivia. Journalists and fans clamored for his presence. Brazil had to beat Uruguay at the Maracana Stadium to finish first of their group. Before the match against Uruguay, Parreira gave up and called Romário. Brazil won 2-0, with Romário scoring both goals, and qualified to the World Cup.

At the World Cup finals, he partnered with Bebeto in the attack to lead his country to a record fourth World Cup title. He scored five goals in the tournament: one in each of the three first round matches, one against the Netherlands in quarterfinals, and the game-winning header against Sweden in the semifinals. He also assisted Bebeto in the only goal of the match against the United States in the eightfinals. He was voted the most outstanding player of the tournament.

The Ro-Ro attack

In the subsequent years, Romário formed, along with fellow Brazilian forward Ronaldo, a feared attacking combo, which was colloquially referred to as the Ro-Ro duo. They each scored a hat-trick in a 6-0 win against Australia in the 1997 FIFA Confederations Cup.

1998 and 2002 World Cup absence

In a controversial decision, Romário, much to the dismay of Brazil fans and his own, was left out of the 1998 World Cup squad. Medical exams had revealed that he had a muscular injury, and he received intensive treatment leading up to the tournament, but he did not recover completely and was dismissed the day of the deadline for the World Cup squad submissions.[7] Brazil lost the World Cup final against hosts France.

Prior to the 2002 World Cup, Romário, aged 36, was in considerably good form for while playing for Fluminense, but once again he was controversially left out of the national squad by coach Luiz Felipe Scolari due to indiscipline, despite general public demand for his inclusion. Brazil went on to win the tournament, beating Germany in the final.

On April 28 2005, Romário played his last game with the Brazilian national team. He scored the second goal in Brazil's 3-0 win against Guatemala.

Honours

Olympic medal record
Representing  Brazil
Men's Football
Silver medal – second place 1988 Seoul Team Competition
Preceded by Dutch Eredivisie Topscorer
1988-1991 		Succeeded by
Preceded by FIFA World Cup Golden Ball
1994 		Succeeded by
Preceded by FIFA World Player of the Year
1994 		Succeeded by
Preceded by South American Footballer of the Year
2000 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Brazilian Championship Top Scorer
2001 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Brazilian Championship Top Scorer
2005 		Succeeded by

Trivia

  • He participated for Brazil at the 2005 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup.
  • On Sept 3, 2006 Romário won in another sport he practices: footvolley. Romário has played footvolley for over 15 years and won the VIP Footvolley.net Open in Miami Beach, USA.
  • Romario has kept the goal tally himself, although it includes goals scored at junior level and friendly matches. He has set himself a target of 1,000 goals before he retires, he currently stands at 999. Dutch broadsheet newspaper "de Volkskrant" claims Romario already scored his 1000th goal on the 25th of March. The paper claims Romario forgot to put a goal made during his stay at PSV in his official tally. [8] [9]

Personal titles

  • South american championship (U 20): 1985
  • Rio state league's top scorer: 1986, 1987, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
  • Olympic Games's top scorer: 1988
  • Dutch league's top scorer: 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992
  • Dutch Cup's top scorer: 1989, 1990
  • Brazilian champions league's top scorer: 1990
  • European Champions League's top scorer: 1990, 1993
  • Spanish league's top scorer: 1994
  • The best South american top player of the spanish league (EFE trophy): 1994
  • World Cup's top player: 1994
  • Onze d'Or (top player of the year for the Onze Mondial french newspaper): 1994
  • FIFA Top player: 1994
  • Confederations Cup's top scorer: 1997
  • Rio-São Paulo tournament's top scorer: 1997, 2000
  • Brazilian Cup's top scorer: 1998, 1999
  • Copa Mercosul's top scorer: 1999, 2000
  • João Havelange's top scorer: 2000
  • Top player of the Intercontinental Cup's final: 2000
  • Brazilian Bola de Prata (Placar): 2000
  • El Pais newspaper (top player): 2000
  • Brazilian league's top scorer: 2001, 2005

Statistics

Team Goals Matches Goal average
Vasco da Gama 323 405 0.79
PSV Eindhoven 165 163 1.01
FC Barcelona 53 84 0.63
Flamengo 204 240 0.85
Valencia CF 14 21 0.67
Fluminense 48 77 0.62
Al-Saad 0 3 0
Miami FC 22 29 0.76
Adelaide United 1 4 0.25
Brazil National Team 56 74 0.76
Brazil Olympic Team 15 11 1.36
Youth years 77 127 0.61
Others 21 13 1.61
Total 999 1251 0.79

References and notes

  1. ^ CBF Official website, CBF, May 1, 2005
  2. ^ 2006 season USL league top goal scorers Accessed September 14th 2006)
  3. ^ League goals from 1987 to 1989 and from 1992 to 2006 are taken from Romário's profile at FootballDatabase, footballdatabase.com . League goals from 1989 to 1992 (at PSV Eindhoven) are retrieved from Keep tally: 'Romario 1000', www.psv.nl - PSV, March 8, 2006
  4. ^ "Romario: I'm the face of Rio" - fifa.com, April 2005.
  5. ^ "Romario still going strong at 40" - fifaworldcup.yahoo.com, February 2006.
  6. ^ "Brazil in the 1994 World Cup" - Virtual-Brazil.com
  7. ^ "Brazil in the 1998 World Cup" - v-brazil.com
  8. ^ [1]
  9. ^ [2]
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