Our definition of ‘cult hero’ isn’t really the same as Brazil’s when it comes to football.
Yeah, you might like David Beckham. But you’re not going to vote him into the Houses of Parliament.
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Because the thing is, while football is an important part of British culture, it pales in significance to its importance in Brazil.
While the mood of most countries swings upon economic fortune, Brazil’s depends on the national team.
Footballers are worshipped like gods and often hold more influence than political leaders.
In fact, sometimes the two can crossover, like in the case of Brazil legend and party animal Romario.
The legendary striker-turned-politician once said: “When I was born, the man in the sky pointed to me and said, ‘That’s the guy’.”
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At times, it felt like Romario had a divine gift in the box, so much that he didn’t even need to try.
“The night was always my friend. When I go out, I am happy and when I am happy I score goals,” he once summarised.
Like fellow Brazil icon Ronaldinho, football came so easy to Romario that he was able to juggle his party lifestyle alongside being the best.
While today’s greats, like Cristiano Ronaldo, spend their lives in the gym to achieve greatness, Ronaldinho once turned up to training drunk and Romario thought practice wasted calories.
He much preferred partying, womanising, and playing volleyball on the beautiful beaches of Rio de Janeiro.
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And his coaches let him, because he was so good. Carlos Alberto Parreira excused Romario from the final training camp before the 1994 World Cup because the forward wanted to play volleyball on the beach with his friends.
Romario went on to become the tournament’s most valuable player, winning the Golden Ball as Brazil lifted the World Cup.
This was despite being at odds with his strike-partner Bebeto, who was everything Romario was not as a person.
Romario admitted to being arrogant, selfish and egotistic, while Bebeto was a humble family man. In 1994, Romario played for Barcelona, Bebeto turned out for Deportivo de La Curuna. While Romario and his Barca teammate Hristo Stoichkov would party from dusk til dawn, Bebeto did not.
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Nonetheless, Romario still advised Parreira to pick Bebeto, in the same way he offered unsolicited advise to most of his managers.
Brazil legend Pele once urged Romario to let coaches be coaches, to which the striker responded by calling the icon ‘mentally retarded’. Romario was never one to shy away from a controversial press conference and was criticised throughout his career for being too outspoken.
Before Barcelona and World Cup stardom, Romario made a name for himself at Vasco de Gama in Brazil before moving the PSV Eindhoven and starring under Guus Hiddink and Sir Bobby Robson in the early nineties.
“He’s the most interesting player I’ve worked with so far,” said Hiddink in 2011. “If he saw that I was a bit more nervous than usual ahead of a big game, he’d come to me and say: ‘Take it easy, coach, I’m going to score and we’re going to win’.
“What’s incredible is that eight out of the 10 times he told me that, he really did score and we really did win.”
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Meanwhile, Sir Bobby dedicated a large section of his autobiography to life with Romario at PSV.
“There was no controlling his private life,” the former England and Newcastle boss wrote. “To Romario, Friday night was party night, even if we had a game the next day.
“Alcohol was not the problem – he was a Coca-Cola guy – but he’d stay out until four in the morning and sleep all day before a 7.30pm kick-off.
“We would take calls from people saying ‘Romário’s been out all night. He left here at four’. He would dance, chat, meet a local lady, carouse with her and then sleep all day to be ‘fresh’ for the game.”
Then at Barcelona, his manager Johan Cruyff revealed Romario once scored goals just so he could go to carnival in Brazil.
“One time, Romario asked me if he could miss two days of training to return to Brazil for the carnival in Rio de Janeiro,” Cruyff explained.
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“I replied: ‘If you score two goals tomorrow, I’ll give you two extra days rest compared to the other players.’
“The next day, Romario scored his second goal 20 minutes into the game and immediately gestured to me asking to leave.
“He told me: ‘Coach, my plane leaves in an hour’. I had no choice but to let Romario leave for fulfilling his promise.”
As a matter of fact, that match was against Real Madrid and Romario went one better than promised by netting a hat-trick in a 5-0 win in January 1994.
So you get the point, Romario absolutely loved to party and managed to become one of the greatest strikers of all time as well.
Unofficially, he netted more than 1000 goals in his career and Diego Maradona is among those who say the Brazilian is the best player they ever faced.
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But, crazy as it sounds, Romario was left short-changed from his football career.
Despite his almost-divine ability in the box, many question what he could’ve been if he had any sort of work ethic.
For example, he only starred at one World Cup when he should’ve shone at four.
An injury kept him quiet at Italia ’90 and forced him to miss France ’98 when he was at the peak of his powers, before indiscipline meant he was left out of the World Cup-winning squad in 2002.
That was because, in 2001, he told Luis Fillipe Scolari he was having an eye operation, but still featured in friendlies for club side Vasco da Gama in Mexico and went on holiday.
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After both the 1998 and 2002 omissions, Romario delivered press conferences breaking down in tears over the fact he was missing out on the World Cup.
Unfortunately, it meant the world never really got to see ‘Ro-Ro’, Romario and Ronaldo, join forces on the world’s biggest stage.
Never one to stay quiet, Romario launched a career as a politician upon his retirement in 2008, which continues to be relatively successful.
He rightly called out corruption at FIFA, and in 2014 he was elected to the Senate with the most votes received ever by a candidate representing the state of Rio de Janeiro.
Romario failed with his bid to become governor of Rio de Janeiro in 2018, but we don’t think we’ve seen the last of him yet.
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