In the summer of ’93, when, a season earlier, Barça had already gotten rid of the ‘thorn’ of being big in the Old Continent after winning their first European Cup against Sampdoria, Romario appeared as the last brushstroke of a museum team: Johan Cruyff’s ‘Dream Team’.
After becoming the great young star of Brazil in Vasco da Gama and shining above the rest for five seasons in the Eredivisie with the PSV shirt, the Dutch coach signed him to evolve the system, renounce the figure of the false 9 and strengthen the trio formed by Koeman, Laudrup and Stoichkov. Even with the rule of only being able to field three foreigners in the starting eleven, the Dutch, Danish, Bulgarian, and Brazilian would fight for a place. And if there were doubts about the bet on an area striker, Romario was in charge of dispelling them with, possibly, the most impressive debut ever against Real Sociedad: “He arrived, said he would score thirty goals and he delivered”remembers Guillermo Amor.
“The night has always been my friend. When I don’t go out, I don’t dial”
The magic in the green was combined with nights out and their bohemian lifestyle. “The night has always been my friend. When I don’t go out, I don’t dial”said Romario in Valencia. In Barcelona, legend has it that The club gave him a detective to monitor his steps.. “I know they set you up to follow me. I’ll pay you this round, it’s going to cost you a fortune a night,” the Brazilian would tell him.
Despite this, every morning, when the ball was in play in training, he enjoyed it like when he was a child in the Jacarezinho favela: “He knew he was different and had peculiar things that people had to understand. Even though he had a great physique, he did not like to work on the physical part. He loved to play,” says Miguel Ángel Nadal. “I think he must have enjoyed it a lot because he loved being in contact with the ball and in our training the ball was the main protagonist,” declares Amor.