PERHAPS ONE DAY SCIENTISTS WILL freeze Romário’s body — just as some wanted to do with Albert Einstein’s brain — so that in a few million years, when mankind has solved most of the mysteries of the Universe, they can tackle the biggest one of all: how can the “Baixinho” — “little fella” — continue to defy time, logic, physics and common sense? Romário was the top scorer in the Brazilian league, which wrapped up in December, grabbing 23 goals in 31 matches for Vasco da Gama. It is the tenth time he has led a league in scoring, a feat he also achieved in the Netherlands and Spain. But the amazing part is that by the end of this month he will be 40.
Yes, 40. Which means that Wayne Rooney was not even a glint in his father’s eye when Romário was making his professional debut. The question of how a man his age manages to score so many goals in the most talent-rich nation on Earth is slightly less of a mystery to those who have seen him play. For Romário never seems to take more than five steps in any direction and, 99 per cent of the time, his idea of a change of pace is accelerating to a slow trot.
And yet the magic in what he does is the sheer number of times that he gets to the ball first, against defenders who are younger, quicker, stronger and taller than he is (the last is not much of a feat as he stands 5ft 6in).
Sir Alex Ferguson once told me that Ruud van Nistelrooy’s quick mind more than made up for his relative lack of pace. Indeed, that is what is meant when one talks about goalscoring instincts — the uncanny ability to know exactly where the ball will go well before it gets there.
In that department, nobody can match Romário. Perhaps there is nobody in the history of the game who even comes close. Because, essentially, there are only two things in which he excels — his aforementioned reading of the game and his finishing — and it is around those skills that he has built his phenomenal career.
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At a time when there is so much talk of athleticism and “complete players”, Romário is a wonderful anachronism. He is unimaginably lazy on the pitch (to the point that at the 1994 World Cup, Carlos Alberto Parreira, the Brazil coach, had to construct a midfield of workhorses to accommodate him), surly and condescending with his team-mates and openly defiant towards any kind of authority.
His critics say that the term prima donna might as well have been invented to describe him and, odds are, he would not argue. Because the truth is that Romário simply does not care what others think, which explains his chequered career, particularly in Europe. He spent five seasons at PSV Eindhoven, where it effectively became club policy that he would train when he wanted and if he wanted. Not the best example for youngsters, perhaps, but it worked because he scored 98 goals in 109 matches.
He moved to Barcelona, under Johan Cruyff, and again averaged about a goal a game, only to be shipped out 18 months later. At PSV he had carte blanche because he was the one and only star; at the Nou Camp there were others and they were unwilling to put up with his antics.
His final European stop came two years later, at Valencia. It ended in tears, largely because the manager, a certain Claudio Ranieri, did not allow him to go clubbing the night before a game. “I am going to do what I want when I want and if I want to dance I will dance,” Romário said. “Nobody can take that from me. If he doesn’t like what I do on the pitch, fine, but nobody is going to tell me what to do off the pitch.”
Perhaps this is why most people look at him and see a man filled with regret. He has one World Cup winner’s medal, from 1994, but he should have three. In 2002, Luiz Felipe Scolari, the Brazil coach, after his umpteenth outburst, kicked him out of the team who went on to win the World Cup. And many in Brazil are convinced that had he not pulled a hamstring before France 98, the Seleção would have taken that title as well. And, of course, his European career was nowhere near what it might have been, had he learnt to curb his excesses.
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In Brazil, they view things differently. There, the media is focusing on his chase for 1,000 goals, a milestone that is taken extremely seriously in Brazil. It may seem unusual that so much importance is attached to reaching the mark — particularly because it is a statistically dubious mixture of official and unofficial matches for club and country — but he would become only the third player in history to reach that plateau, after Pel é and Artur Friedenreich, the great Brazil striker of the early 20th century.
“I think he’ll reach 1,000 goals, but he’ll never overtake my total,” Pelé said, referring to his tally of 1,281.
Such comments are enough for Romário, who has 944 goals to his name, to postpone his retirement — again — so that he can focus on the record. Because that is the side of him that is rarely seen: his competitive streak. Far from being a fat, lazy goal-hanger, Romário is an intensely hungry professional. The fact that he is still playing at the highest level at his age is a testament to that. True, he may stay up all night four or five times a week, but he balances that out with a stringent diet made exclusively of white meat, fruit and vegetable juice. And while he may choose to take a nice long nap instead of a training session, his excuse for doing so may well be true: “I know my body best and I know what I need to do to produce my best.”
After all, it is hard to argue with the results. While he is certainly not an example to follow, he is a unique specimen at which to marvel.