Totally Extra: Revisiting Romario

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1:57one of the laziest. The fights, the football, the thousand goals, or maybe just 726. Of shorty, it's your Totally Extra.

2:18It's a Thursday in your recent past, listener, as we gather at the Totally Studios to record this special Totally Extra here with us we've got Duncan Alexander Hi James Lovely to see you Duncan and how's about this never before together Jack Lang Hello and Sky Sports I'm trying to remember which broadcasting entity Sky Sports Natalie Jedra I know never together Jack that doesn't make sense What a moment Yes yes There's a lot of Brazil happening here It's the Brazilian heat right It's just De Niro and Pacino finally together. Well, it's been so hard to put this together. Yeah, I never thought it could happen.

3:00Right. Me neither. Iconic. Iconic, Duncan. There on the studio, literally behind Natalie, is the picture from one of the most famous images from the 94 World Cup. Yeah. Of Marzino, Bebeto and Romario doing the Rocking the Cradle celebration. Which, when they did it, people were like, well, that's really different and that's quite a good thing. Right. It's now been done by approximately 4.2 million footballers. It's lost some of its impact. Also, goal celebrations have kind of explored the kind of backstory conception-wise. We've had the Francesco Totti with the ball up his jersey and then innumerable other players miming the kind of conception moment as well.

3:41That was the classy one. The baby rocking is so much nicer than ball, stomach or the sucking thumb.

3:49James Richardson: Yeah. Do some rocking. And the baby rocking, it's a team effort. Yeah. Yeah. Shock us with some news about the baby whose birth was being celebrated in that. I became a professional footballer, currently playing in Portugal. In Portugal, is he? Wikipedia tells me, yeah, Mateus Oliveira. Okay. And he's 32. He is. Do you think his teammates do that to him now? I would think almost constantly, yeah. Wow. Well, Romário, some would say, has been a little bit forgotten by history. In Brazil, is this right? That when you talk about Ronaldo Romário, people consider Romário to be the greater of the two.

4:33It varies. But there are people, starting with Romário himself, because he's the first one to sing his own praises. Yes. No, it's just because two last times we won the World Cup. It was through these two players. And this is why Romário, I know many times in Europe, he's not in the conversation of, you know, best strikers of all time. Right. But in Brazil, that's different. He's always in that conversation. Why do you think that is in Europe? Is it because he didn't get the Ballon d 'Or because he wasn't eligible back? Is he the last great Brazilian that played nearly all of his career in Brazil?

5:08Probably. He's considered the biggest transfer in the history of Brazilian football. when he came back to Flamengo after the World Cup in 1995. But yeah, maybe it's just that Neymar played for quite some time in Brazil, more than he would if he just started today. So yeah, but this movement of going to Europe and coming back at his prime, it was probably Romário, the last one, definitely. Cruyff called him the best player he'd ever coached, which is some going. I've got the goals per game here for the Celisau. Pele 0.84, pretty good. Romario in second place at 0.79 ahead of Ronaldo, R9, who's on 0.63.

5:59Neymar on 0.62. Crikey. Loads of folk writing in about this one. Nick Pavlo says, Has there ever been a more combustible forward duo in football than Romário and Stojkov, who had a year together at Barca? Ronaldo Barcelos, I'm from Brazil, Fluminense supporter. I always remember his one and only bike goal. You remember that one? Yes, 5-2 against Guarani. I think it was, I had it 2003. Yeah, he scored a hat-trick on that game, actually. Okay, did a lot of that, didn't he? Rodrigo Rivero says, I remember his row with Luis Aragonese at Valencia. Yeah. One of the many. One of the many. One of the many.

6:41Enrique Sarraiva, or possibly Enrique Sarraiva, three assists from Guardiola, three goals from home audio in his debut for Barcelona. And Guardiola says that he never said thank you to him. No. Yes, I watched an interview of him saying that. But he's a big home audio fan. He is? Yeah, he is.

7:17Pistol Pete says how about that 1997 Brazil partnership with Ronaldo, the Ro-Ro. How did you pronounce that? Ho-Ho? Ho-Ho, yeah. Are you guys Ho-Ho? Very Christmassy. Well, we'll get on to all of those topics. There's so much backstory. I've got like 13 pages. Sorry, listener. We're going to be here for a while. 13 pages of, hey, did he do this? And did that really happen?

7:40James Richardson: I think I've got a little surprise for you as well. Which I didn't see in the notes. But you're going to love. I love that. Leave that hanging. Love a surprise. It's musical. I know what you're talking about. It is good. Yes, just hanging there. Duncan, you've also got a quiz question for us. I hope it's a good one because I imagine Jack and Natalie are going to be all over this. I'm sure they will. But Romário never played in the Premier League, right? But I'm going to focus on the Premier League. Why not? Because I couldn't really find a good question about his Brazilian career that these two wouldn't get.

8:19First five Brazilian scorers in the Premier League. Simple as that. First five? Chronologically. Juninho? Yeah, one of them. Number two. Emerson? Number three. Branco? No. No, he didn't score. We've got two out of five straight off the bat. Should we hold the others back for the end of the show? I'll just chuck another one out there.

8:39James Richardson: Emerson Tome, Tommy. Correct. He's number four. So we're looking for number one and number five. Number one. What year would number one have been? The same year that Juninho scored. Okay. Oh, God. Hmm. Yeah. Quite the year for Brazilians coming to our league. All right. Well, speaking of quite the year, let's take a little dip into the football almanac, find out what this week in football has brought us down the ages.

9:1226th of October, 1863, Ebenezer Cobb Morley. Yes. He's Ebenezer Cobb. Yeah, he chaired the meeting that established the standard set of laws by which all football clubs in England then played the game, forming thus the FA. Is that a correct summary, Duncan? Yeah. Good, we'll move on. 28th of October 2017, England's under-17s won the World Cup, beating Spain 5-2 in the final. Ha! Rhian Brewster, Mark Gay, Morgan Gibbs-White and Phil Foden all on the score sheet. Foden got a brace. England are the world champions They have destroyed Spain They have got redemption For the European defeat in Croatia In May England 5, Spain 2 Is how it ended Arguably Spain's under-17s have rather had the last laugh Since then though And the 30th of October 1997 Diego Maradona celebrated His 37th birthday and announced That he was done with football Well, this was five days after he played what turned out to be his final game for Boca Juniors.

10:25Well, today, our subject with whom Diego, for all their national differences, probably had a great deal in common. They did, yeah. There is a famous nutmeg from Romario against Maradona in 89, yeah, Copa America that year. He nutmegged Maradona? Yes, he did. Fair play. Genuinely, hats off.

10:52James Richardson: Not much space between Maradona's legs. I would have thought there was quite a bit. Was he not quite bandy-legged? He was quite short. Yeah, maybe. Well, maybe they cancel each other out. It's just normally difficult. Right. Anyway, here's a montage. Romario was the most incredible player. The speed of turn, speed off the mark, the ability to beat someone. He's just an amazing player. Amazing player.

11:22Romario, Romario, Romario, Vaseline, gol. Romario, Barcelona, gol. Romario was to me the scariest thing I've seen. I remember him just stood in front of me thinking I've got him. And he's spinning on me and running behind me. What the hell was that? Romario, the viola. Amelie, head of the head. Romario, goal, goal, goal, goal.

11:57All right, HS is too young to have seen Romário. Who is he similar to? What would his level be in today's game? How about that one to start you off?

12:08James Richardson: Similar. Two players come to mind. One would be Sergio Aguero. I saw similarities, kind of stocky, explosive, not necessarily the fastest outright sprinting, but very good in small spaces, out of the blocks, didn't need much space to shoot. An outstanding finisher. Outstanding finisher. A player playing today, I don't see many people, and this is probably generous to who I'm going to say, but maybe Endrik is probably fairly close. Like, again, stature, operating in small spaces, good springiness to him. But I don't think he's really even in the same conversation in terms of finishing. Natalie, anyone you can suggest?

12:56It's a good call with Aguero, I think. Yes, no, definitely. Michael Cox says that Romario was totally unique. So, yeah. Never before, says Michael, has there been a player with such abundant ability and such disdain for the necessity of training. Total disregard for the off-field customers of the game. Bobby Robson was his manager at PSV for a couple of seasons. There were days, said Sir Bobby, when he was pathetically lazy. But you had to pick him because if you left him out, you might miss a hat trick. There's a really good story on his early days at Vasco. So he wasn't big yet, but he was already scoring a lot of goals.

13:36And they would have this training session that was to run around the Rodrigo de Freitas Lake. It's a very famous loop in Rio. It's around five miles, a little bit less. The Laguna. Yes, yes. And he didn't like this type of training. What his teammates would say is that he trained what he felt he needed to train. But the rest, he was kind of like, no, I'm not going to do that. So because he wasn't famous, big famous at the time, he would run 1K and then he tells the story and his teammates confirm it. He would take the bus and meet everyone at the end. He would splash some water at him just to pretend to the coaching staff that he was all sweaty and everything.

14:20And no one would tell anything to the coaching staff because at match day he would score anyway. There's a great interview with him on the Players' Tribune, which you might have seen. And there's a story in there about him going to the beach instead of preparing for a game against Fluminense. I'm not sure if this is with Flamengo or Vasco, but it's once he goes back to Brazil. He said, we had a game with Fluminense. I decided not to play. I don't remember why. Anyway, the guys got together 24 hours before the game to prepare for the match. Well, I spent the day on the beach. Then for some reason, I decided I wanted to play after all.

14:54So I went straight to the Maracanã. The team had been there for hours. they'd even warmed up. I walked into the dressing room brushing sand off my feet. I ended up playing. I scored twice and we won. Adds home Mario. There was a kid, Marcelo, who was about to make his debut. He'd invited his entire family to watch. I started instead of him. Wow.

15:16James Richardson: This is prime Brazilian players being at the beach a lot era. I don't think this is as much of a thing now. nowadays teams maybe once a season you'll see it in the sports papers they'll go and train on the beach like ah fluminense pre-season big session on the beach just to kind of appease the fans but in this period it seemed as though people like homario zico was a big beach guy as well they'd be on the beach i'll go and train now straight from the beach don't see that enough these days yeah and and he was quite confrontational about it because it was very common that you know his team would be training and he would be playing futivoli at the beach like that that's which is hard classic yeah but he's very fond of like he really likes his futivoli right okay but i mean he wasn't being lazy he just liked a different kind of training i guess i mean futivoli is that must be about as intense i've only tried a couple of times and it's a workout yeah yeah yeah so vasco da gama was his first professional club around that he was part of a great great generation that won at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

16:25He was the player of the tournament, I think. Yes, yes, he was. You had Taffarel there, Mazzinho, Bebeto as well. So, yeah, teammates from 94 World Cup. Yeah, and then he played at the Copa America in 89. And won. And won alongside Bebeto. Alongside Bebeto. Yeah. So then he goes to PSV Eindhoven. 88. Which he says was f***ing hard. He curses a lot. Right. I was in a place where it was dark and freezing. Man, it reached minus 17 one time. 17. Can you blame me for not training? Says Romario. But, I mean, he did brilliantly there, no? Yeah, absolutely. He, in PSV, there was like the first season.

17:14He did really well. He had a massive impact right away. and Gus Hintnick was the coach and he gave him a lot of freedom and he understood Romário's personality. So he had his privileges of training whenever and negotiating things. There's a very famous story of Hintnick. He was a bit annoyed because Romário was always late for training. And Romário argues that he wasn't late. He was just on time. If you say three o 'clock, I'm going to be here three o 'clock. I'm not going to be here 2.59. And then he changed his watch. And when Romário arrived... He didn't did. Yes. And when Romário arrived, he showed his watch.

17:58He was like, no, you're five minutes late. And you're not going to train. And Romário was really annoyed with that. So that fired Romário up to a really important match against Bucharest. And then Romário ended up scoring a hat-trick, I think. and it was kind of probably, he always did yeah, but it was kind of his his big his big performance for Europe to really start noticing him ah, that one that one I was just going to say needless to say, yeah

18:41Crikey to be fair to Romário having been to Eindhoven in the winter you know even as someone from the south midlands it wasn't the most uh enticing place well he lasted five years there five seasons 165 goals in 167 games this to go back to earlier question about

19:02James Richardson: why his career isn't put on the same pedestal this is maybe why these are like in many ways this is his golden era like right kind of the homario we think of in our minds are you know like World Cup, Romario, Barcelona, the kind of Vasco da Gama against Manchester United, all of these moments, these are actually like 30s. His kind of peak goal scoring period, so he's at PSV from like 22 to 27, stays there for five seasons, as you said. I think if this was a career playing out now, I don't think he'd be there for five seasons. Interesting, I'm not quite sure why he stayed there so long, But like, you know, he scored over 50 goals in his first two seasons.

19:47James Richardson: Yeah. You'd think a big team might...

19:52It's the same career path that straight away Ronaldo then takes PSV and then on to Barcelona. And Ronaldo says that it was one of the reasons. That Romario did, right? Yes, yes. He looked up to Romario. And for Romario, it made sense because in 88, when he moves to PSV, the Netherlands were the European champions and they were playing a type of football that was very relatable for a player, for a Brazilian player and for a player like Romário. But when he leaves to Barcelona, it gets to his final season, his teammates were very fed up with the privileges he had. Okay. Goes to Barcelona, who themselves are playing a brand of that same football, thanks to the presence of Johan Cruyff, who's possibly, I mean, one of, if not the only manager that Romario ever respected, the quotes from him, that guy could have still played for us, he says, of Croft's presence at the training ground.

20:46He would say, get the ball here, turn there, shoot in the top corner. We'd be like, f***, still we can't do that. And then he would do it. Pure magic.

20:53James Richardson: Yeah, and interesting because his default position regarding the greats of the game was not quite so generous. Like Natalie said, he was always kind of arguing. arguing and I think he had a chip on his shoulder regarding his status and the Pelé quotes come to mind so like obviously most Brazilians spend their whole careers doffing their cap to Pelé but Romário didn't. My fate like there are loads that you could there are probably seven or eight great Pelé quotes but the best one I think Pelé is a poet when he has his mouth shut which is just it's just such a great line and so economical because Pelé was criticizing Romário for Romário was chasing his 1000 goal and Pelé was like no it's time for him to stop air quotes on the thousands we'll get into that but yes uh that that's a really good quote I I yeah they're they're really good quotes when when we get to Edimundo I'll tell you about my favorite okay yeah and Romário's response to this is okay is it confrontational people are allowed to criticize me I'm not allowed to reply that's I mean I'm just uh putting my point of view across but Barcelona and we're talking about peak Romario I think for most people maybe listening to this podcast that's what we think of as Romario that year 93 94 with the World Cup that follows afterwards is when he really is the best in the world and he arrives to Barcelona saying he's going to score 30 goals this season did he and he scored yes because you can you can find this interview he's it's an interview for Spanish TV and he and he scores 30 goals at the final day against Sevilla 30 goals in 33 matches and he probably could have scored more if he hadn't got 5 games suspended for an outrageous punch he punches Diego Simeone because he elbowed Romario but he runs up behind him and clocks him from behind extraordinary moment anyway A bit extreme.

22:59Yeah, he debuts with that hat-trick, and we mentioned that, the assist from all three goals assisted by Juan Pep Guardiola. Later in the season, you've got an absolutely extraordinary classical performance against Real Madrid, where he gets three goals, a hat-trick again, and an assist.

23:28He marked the fourth. He left Romario, he handed the ball to Romario to mark the fourth. He was ready for the Ayloud before the Aza. He guessed the intention and in the 36 minute, Romario made the fourth. And that's a Real Madrid side with Luis Enrique in the line-up, a young Ivan Zamorano, Prozoneski's there, possibly not so young. Later still that season, the famous story. Is it true that he goes to, Cruyff and says, I want to go to the carnival. Is this true? He had a few bets with Jürgen Cruyff. Right. He liked, he enjoyed betting with people and with Jürgen Cruyff. The thing was, at the time, Cruyff would give like a couple of days, two, three days off to players to go back home.

24:16But there weren't really a lot of players who would, you know, who would have families and home across the ocean. So Romario's argument is, I need more days. I need more days than them because I can't get home so quickly. So he would say, okay, if I score two goals the next game, you give me time off. And Cruyff was like, okay, done. And he would score the two goals. And yes, he negotiated carnival like that. Supposedly he scored them in the first 20 minutes, then said, can you hook me? Because my plane leaves in half an hour. I'd like to think it was true. Yeah, there you go. They pipped Deportivo to the title that year.

24:54He previously won, I think, three national titles with PSV back in Eindhoven. And he has another one here in La Liga. Thanks to the narrative being they had this two-horse race with Deportivo La Coruña, where Bebeto was playing and Deportivo have the penalty on the last day, which had they scored it, would have given them the title. Bebeto refuses to take it. The penalty is saved and it's Barcelona who win the title. And this kind of feeds into this whole thing that Romario had with Bebeto. They were very different figures, even though we see them as a pair so much in 94. Yeah, they are completely different personalities.

25:39Bebeto is very shy and an introvert and very religious and super disciplined. And Romario is not. So back in the day when they started, Bebeto played for Flamengo, Romário for Vasco. So there was the start of the rivalry. But throughout his career, he had disagreements with Bebeto, especially around politics. when they were into politics, both of them. But during their careers, it's not that they didn't get along. They just weren't friends because they were very different. But on the pitch, Romário always said that Bebeto is the best player he played alongside. Of all his partnerships? Of all his partnerships.

26:26More than Stoichkov at Barcelona? He always mentioned. More than Ronaldo with the Brazilian national side? Every interview. Really? He always praises. Interesting, because he said lots of other things about Bebeto, which we'll get on to maybe next as we talk about that golden summer in the United States, USA 94.

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29:08This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pierce, Olly Kay, and the very best football writers around. The opening ceremonies are underway. Let's go now to Soldier Field, USA 94, the World Cup on TSN. To the 60 ,000 managers today, and to you, the one billion international viewers joining us around the world, the United States of America warmly welcomes you to World Cup USA. USA, 1994!

29:57Everybody, let's celebrate with the incomparable Miss Diana Ross!

30:07Alright, so the Champions League final had come in Athens and the Barcelona Dream Team had been had a bit of a nightmare really against Capello's Milan, beaten 4-0. However, Romário was to get his revenge on the Italians that summer he wasn't supposed to play in that World Cup he'd been left out of the national team for a year because he'd upset Pereira what had happened there a lot of things happened so in 92 Brazil beat Germany in a really good exhibition where Romário didn't play Careca played and he played really well and everyone was really happy because Brazil came off the back of a bad World Cup in 1990.

30:51So that was a good win. And Romário was just complaining and complaining to the teammates, complaining to the media about the fact that he didn't play. And that was not well seen by the coaching staff. So they were like, OK, 1990 was a mess for Brazil. For different reasons, it was a very messy dressing room. And they wanted to, you know, organize everything for 94. So they stopped calling Romário. and then in 93, Brazil was close to not qualifying for the World Cup. And I cannot stress, I remember that vividly because in 93, we were desperate. So you had one game to sort it out against Uruguay.

31:29Uruguay. At the Maracanã. Yes. And then Parreira finally calls Romário. Romário, funny enough, he always said that he never had a problem with Parreira. His problem was with Zagallo and he's very vocal about his problems with Zagallo who was Parreira's number two. and who would end up being the... Whose face he would later paint on the door of a toilet in his bar.

31:50James Richardson: Not the only face. Not the only face. We'll get back to that. Yes. And the Uruguay game was massive. Uruguay had won three of the last four Copa Americas. It was a good side and a footballing nation, so it was big for them as well to not be involved in the World Cup. Romário comes back. He makes a promise. Yeah, he promises to Ricardo Rocha and several of his other teammates, they heard that as well, that he was gonna, it was one nutmeg, one chapeau. Yeah. What's a chapeau? Oh, like a sombrero. A sombrero, yes. Right. Yes. And two goals. So first half, nutmeg, check, sombrero, check. And the guys in the dressing room at halftime, but it was Nuno.

32:36Right. They were like, where are the goals? Kind of the important bit. Yeah. And I was like, no, no, second half. And then he scores I think he scores the first one as a header, like cross from Beto and a header. And the second one, I think, is one of Romario's most iconic goals. Like a really long pass from Mauro Silva to him and his sprints, his speed at that time was just so impressive. And he dribbles the goalkeeper and when he's almost losing the angle, he scores the goal. Like if you ask me about one Romario goal, I'm going to describe that one. That performance from Brazil was massive and Romário was...

33:16You have no idea how much appeal there was. People were desperate for Romário to go back to the World Cup. I was... to the national team. I was seven and I was like, where is Romário? For God's sake, we need him. And then he just saves the day.

33:42Brazil!

33:46Brazil! Brazil! Brazil! Brazil! Romário! Romário! Romário de novo! Que beleza, Romário! Goleiro de um lado, bola do outro, botou lá dentro pra você curtir!

34:24Wow. And then he promises that Brazil are going to win the World Cup. Naturally. Naturally. Let's see. Then we come on to some more Pele quotes, It's because Romário is very keen on having Edmundo called up for the national side. And Pelé tells him to mind his own business. So he calls Pelé mentally retarded. How did that go down in Brazil? Not well. Pelé was a pundit for the main TV station in Brazil, the main broadcaster. So like one of the most iconic images for Brazilians of the 94 World Cup is like him with the commentator and the co-commentator just jumping up and down. screaming, et cetera, et cetera.

35:06And so Pelé was on TV all the time. Right. Okay. But Pelé was not, there were people who were a bit restrictive about him. Okay. I mean, he said a lot of silly things. Exactly. Yes. That's my point. Okay. A good player, though. And a lovely chat. Lovely man. Lovely man. Other things that were happening in the build-up to that World Cup. Romário's father getting kidnapped.

35:33James Richardson: Not ideal. Yeah. Yeah. Could have done without that, to be honest. Yeah. And he played El Clásico with his father kidnapped. And he didn't play well. It was the second leg, because the first leg he scored a hat-trick at Camp Nou. And the second one, he offered to play. He wanted to play. And it was very close to the national team being called up for the World Cup. and he was very close to his dad so it had a massive impact on him. Right, luckily his father was then found and the suggestion I think from Rio Police was that Romário was such a popular figure that people connected, people who knew people were able to tip them off and tell them.

36:19Romário comes from the favela. Right. He comes from Jacarezinho. So he knew people who knew people who were like okay, everyone loves Romário. Could you just, yeah. Except for Pele maybe, but yeah, Yeah, he wasn't in any way. Can we just stress that? I'm negotiating the other direction. No. And then you have the Bebeto business, whereby having recently beaten Bebeto in the Spanish title race and called him a crybaby for his complaints to the referee and failure to take a crucial penalty, he then announces in a press conference that he doesn't want to sit next to Bebeto on the plane. Correct? There are different versions of that story.

37:00Because this is one you see again and again. There is a version that Romário was supposed to have a middle seat between Bebeto and Miller. And with Miller, he had a problem. Okay. Since 1990, he had a problem with Miller. They didn't see eye to eye. So he said that he's not sitting in the middle. So it was Miller as the problem, not Bebeto. Supposedly, yes. But maybe everyone was a problem, you know. No one wants to sit in the middle seat ever, right? But how far are you willing to go to not get the middle seat? Because Ian Bebeto then seemed to get on pretty well, not just in terms of their playing partnership, but also as we saw the celebration of Bebeto, when he does their rock in the cradle, who goes and joins him?

37:48It's Romario. There's an even more famous celebration between them. in the US game last 16 the 94 World Cup was a very tight game and Romário assists Bebeto's goal and Bebeto runs to him and says I love you yes and like it's one of the most iconic Bebeto Romário moments and yes and they hug each other and Romário says I love you too oh that's so nice yeah Romário part of the machine the hope is always you go Romário go Romário

38:41Why don't people remember that? Yeah. People, though. Just want to see the bad. uh hamario brazil had six matches on route to the final he scored in five of them which is pretty good going was named the player of the tournament what stands out for you jack do you remember that

38:58James Richardson: well usa well uh it was just on the limit for me was it uh age wise so i i've seen the videos more than i saw it live um but the fact that all of his five goals were opening goals he cracked the game open every time. If I had to pick one, I'd probably say the Netherlands goal in the quarterfinal, which is, it's just such, it's a great assist from Bebet, a little half volley. Romario's finish looks like a side-footed half volley, which would have been cool. But when you watch the replay, he's actually in mid-air and he volleys it with his laces in mid-air, half volley. It's an extraordinarily hard finish and he makes it look so good.

39:40James Richardson: And just the combination of like the deep American nets, Brazil's blue kit, It's visually one of my favourite goals. It's just so clean. I love it. There were signs towards the end of the half that things were opening out and the start of the second half, they certainly are. Romario is in the middle! And scores! Did he have a typical finish for Mario? A toe poke, didn't he? Oh, I don't know. Well, it's... Lobbed a lot? So this is... Natalie will probably remember this. There was a Twitter account. I don't know if it's still live. three or four five six years ago called Encino Homario teach them Homario and some guy somewhere in the world or girl had put together this massive archive of Homario goal videos and whenever a goal went in in the Premier League or Champions League a big goal this person would find a really comparable Homario goal and put the video side by side no way just say like teach them Homario I don't think there is a typical Romario finish I think the variety is what marks them out and they were little dinks the toe poke one in the 94 World Cup was famous just this economy of doing the one thing necessary to get the ball in the net wherever it was Because you've got a plane to catch There was this old Brazilian strike called Dada Dada Maravilha and he was like this great philosopher goal scorer right of the 50s and 60s he said great stuff like oh i was too busy scoring goals to learn how to play football there's no such thing as an ugly goal ugly is not scoring and there is a little bit of that to homari even though i think homari is a really good footballer as well there is something in that that he just needed to get the ball in the net he didn't There were beautiful finishes.

41:31James Richardson: There were really ugly finishes. But it was just this one-track obsession with finishing. You know, he wasn't dropping out of the box and playing through balls. He didn't really care about that. Oh, because that's interesting. Thierry Henry, there's a quote that, again, I've come across where Thierry talks about Romario and then later Ronaldo as reinventing a little bit this or redefining the striker position because they would drop deep. They would come back and create play and participate in the build-up. But yeah, certainly it's not what you think of when you think of Romário. I bow to Thierry Henry's knowledge, but no, that's not what I...

42:13And even when you hear Romário talking about his partnerships in Barcelona, and more specifically with Guardiola, he says that the reason why he enjoyed playing with Guardiola was because he knew the timing. to he knew Romário's movement and timing and this is why it worked so well and funny enough Jack was talking about the variety of goals he was a good header as well so you have a lot of of headers from Romário and any important moments as well wow he also he scored a lot of this is a

42:46James Richardson: very strange thing to say he scored a lot of funny goals like goals where you go ah the goal Natalie mentioned against Uruguay which is a very strange goal because he looks like he's going to knock it one way and run round the other which is like dribbli da vaca which is a cow dribbling what's a cow dribble? it's when you kick it on one side of the plane and run round the other. Why would a cow do that? Welcome to my world Jimbo, this is me free translating life. So there's the other Homario move which is called the cow's tail, is that right where you basically shepherd the ball you spin but kind of cushion the ball around with your your instep that's what i've i don't know but the cows dribble i've not heard of i think i think it was a reference to like scrubland football when there might have been a literal cow a literal cow dribbling anyway he goes to do this and then realizes halfway through that he actually can't get around that side so he stays on the same side it's like a car swerving lanes, scores that goal.

43:46James Richardson: There are so many times that he just dinks it with just enough power to beat the keeper but make the keeper think he can get it. He ends up in the goal. He's a humorous finisher, I would say. Excellent. Excellent. And on the 94 World Cup, it's important to stress why Romário is so big because Brazil did not like that team. Brazilian fans did. Brazil hadn't won for 24 years. For years, there was a lot of pressure. And before the World Cup, players that we see today as very recognized players, like Tafareo. People didn't like Tafareo. They thought he was a crappy goalkeeper. Yes, and defenders and midfielders, no one.

44:30They only liked Romário. So when Brazil went to the 94 World Cup, no one believed Brazil would be able to win because they didn't see that squad as a team ready to win the World Cup. And this is what makes Romário even bigger. And there's a social context as well of, you know, Brazil came off the back of an impeached president in 92. Terrible economic crisis right after that. And before that, actually, like late 80s and early 90s in Brazil was very tough. And in May, a month before the start of the World Cup, Ayrton Senna dies. Of course. Yes, which was a massive. I can't overstate the impact that that had in the country.

45:16The country was sad. And the players who won 94, they took on that because they say in interviews, like, Brazil needed that win, and that fired us. They actually met Ayrton Senna, I think, 10 days before his accident. Right. And that really fired them up to the World Cup to go and win it. It was a very united group. And Romari was the image of that group. So you take all of that and then you have a massive idol in Brazil. After the World Cup, back to Barcelona briefly. We'll get on to what follows next.

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47:56You're listening to The Totally Football Show with James Richardson. now with you four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy seeing glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show. So back to Barcelona, he doesn't win the Ballon d 'Or because non-European players in those days were not eligible. It goes to Horst Stoichkov. Instead, he picks up the World Footballer of the Year award. Stoichkov says that, to his mind, Romario never came back from the World Cup, that he wasn't the same player afterwards. And certainly by spring the next year, he's fallen out with, even before that, with Johan Cruyff, who's decided that he can be on his way.

48:37And he returns to Brazil, as you say, this massive move to Flamengo, where he wins a couple of Carioca Rio de Janeiro championships, finishing top scorer on four successive occasions. Moves back to Europe briefly to join Valencia, where he's managed by Claudio Ranieri. with whom he fails to get along, Jack.

48:59James Richardson: I'll just take you back to 1995. Yes. When he also did this. Did he make a song? We're bad boys. This has nothing to do with us. This rap is what you're going to learn. This is the story of this couple of bad boys. I went from the jacarese. I went from Niteroi. Romani, Edimundo. It's a war for the nation. Wow. Do you want an acapella version?

49:38I think people are into beat mixing. I reckon you could probably beat mix the original version into the Anfield rap almost perfectly. Maybe worth a try. That's proper baile funky, yeah? Yeah, sort of. It's like a precursor of... Yeah, it's lighter. It is lighter.

49:58James Richardson: Happy dos Bad Boys. Okay. The rap of the bad boys. So this is Edmundo and Romário. Together. Who certainly both fulfill that category's requirements, but who also fall out later on, sadly. Sadly. They fell out a thousand times. Did they fall out a thousand times? Oh my God, yes. Those two. No. There's even a very recent interview from one of Edmundo's daughter and one of Romario's daughter and they're friends. They're like really close friends. And they're like, it's a running joke in our families that they fall out all the time. And then Edimundo just shows up in one of my dad's parties. So yeah, it got to a point where they would fall out about everything, like leadership in the dressing room, especially when they were playing together at Vasco in the early 2000s, like leadership in the dressing room, football, women, anything.

50:52They were just two big, massive personalities. And one of my favorite Romário quotes, and it's probably his classic Romário quote, when they had a fallout, and Edimundo said that Romário was a prince because he had all these privileges at Vasco, and Romário said that Edimundo was a fool. and then when Romário scores in one match I think he scored a hat-trick and he leaves the pitch and when he's doing his pitch interview he says the whole court is happy now the king, the prince and the fool so yes they were a good pairing in music on the pitch but also very explosive and highly entertaining yeah, wow Well, he had really successful years there, Flamengo and then Vasco as well.

51:49And this largely unobserved by the European audience, except when Vasco were part of the exciting Club World Cup experiment that FIFA staged in Rio de Janeiro in 2000, which also featured Manchester United and Real Madrid. And Corinthians. And Corinthians. Destroyed the FA Cup. Remember the famous front page? Did they, though? Well, it's all good. So the FA, in the interest of buying support for England's 2006 World Cup bid, had offered Man United's participation. David Beckham et al., yeah. But didn't allow United to fill their reserves in the third round, which meant that United just went, OK, well, we're not going to take part in the FA Cup then, which seems legitimate.

52:36Well, to be fair to Manchester United, I think they were really uncomfortable about it. But the FA and the government were like, no, you need to go to this. They look pretty comfortable sat around the pool. I mean, I think once they got there, they had a nice time. They had a nice time. Yeah, they were in that hotel and what's the name of that amazing? Copacabana Palace. No, they were further down. It's next to San Corrado.

52:59James Richardson: San Corrado, yeah. It's that little private beach next to it. So beautiful. It's very nice. So beautiful. and yeah amazing time except when they played Vasco da Gama with Romario and Edmundo. Romario scores twice both of which are not the most difficult goals he's ever scored thanks to great work by Gary Neville yeah extraordinary two lovely assists for them. Oh that's a bit short from Gary Neville and this is Edmundo and this is Romario. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I remember him just stood in front of me thinking I've got him and him spinning on me and running behind me thinking what the hell was that?

53:39Brilliant, instinctive movement, change of direction. Change of direction from Mario was exceptional. And that was the thing that always troubled me the most, was change of direction. Pace, straight pace. You can handle straight pace because you can just drop off. But change of direction at pace, with the ball, pray. Frank is going off and they're quite noisy and again Neville unaware that Romario is behind him and that's two

54:13well Christmas has come late for Romario and then Edgmundo with an absolutely brilliant third yeah well there you go but then they fall out Then they fall out. Yes, because Edmundo loses the penalty that gives the win to Corinthians. Ah. Yes, and Romário is very vocal, saying that it's all Edmundo's fault.

54:39James Richardson: Oh. And they'd fallen out before the tournament as well, because to go back to that toilet door thing. Oh, yeah. So Romário opens his bar, puts Zagallo, a caricature, on one of the toilet doors. This is because of the 98 World Cup. The Zagallo thing? Yeah. Amongst other things, yes. Amongst other things. But he also puts a caricature of this model, Cristina Motagua, who was the mother of one of Edgimundo's children. Right. And Edgimundo hated this and didn't speak to him for months. Well, they were able to patch that up. That's nice. Don't get this in Premier League. So the reason, well, I mentioned the 98 World Cup, which Romario, after being the star of 94, wasn't called up for.

55:20Yeah. despite the fact that he and Ronaldo had been tearing it up with this magnificent partnership in the Confederations Cup and the Copa America which Brazil have won with the pair of them doing wonders in 1997 yeah yes they had 19 games together won 14 won the Copa America in 97 in 97 and beaten and and the Confederations Cup but then when he gets to 98 Romário has an injury and but Then he gets called up and then he has a cough injury. He's with the camp and Zagallo decides, no, he's not staying because he won't recover in time. And there's this iconic press conference that Romário gives in tears saying that he didn't want to leave and he got caught up by surprise.

56:10He slept in the national team and woke up out of the World Cup. And then, because his point was always that he would be fit enough to play in the playoffs. And then he gets the cut, comes back to Brazil and asks for his team at the time. He asks for Flamengo to schedule a friendly match one day, like the day after, the day before the playoffs in the World Cup. Just to show. Yes, that he was fit. And then he goes and scores. Okay, and would Brazil have needed him maybe that fateful day when Ronaldo was having his... Surely 98 has to be the peak of players reacting badly to not getting picked as well.

56:55So you've got Gascoigne and Phil Neville to a lesser extent. All right. Well, in 2000, I think it is in partnership with Edmundo, he wins the national title in Brazil as well. adds that to his collection of Vasco da Gama, as well as that match against United. In 2002 comes another World Cup, for which he is not selected, this time by Scolari. Yeah. He does continue to appear for Brazil until 2005, when he wraps things up with a tally of 55 goals in 70 appearances. That places him fourth on the overall list of Brazil goalscorers behind, well, Pele and Neymar and Ronaldo. Won silver. So he won silver at the 88 Olympics.

57:44Sorry, he didn't win the... Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because first time Brazil won was 2016. Right. World Cup in 1994. Confederations Cup, two Copa Americas, because 97 and 99 as well. And there was one prize that he was still battling for. Is that a fair summary of the noughties for him? trying to reach that figure of a thousand goals, which I believe that in classic Romario fashion, he himself had predicted way back at the start of his career to a Brazilian magazine. Yeah. Yeah, he did. It was just such an icon. Everyone was invested in Romario's 1 ,000 goals. Yes. I have a friend who traveled to Rio, I don't know how many times.

58:29To see. To see it. And he's not even a Vasco fan. He just wanted to see Romario scoring the 1 ,000 goal. Everyone was talking about it. And he tried in different ways, you know, because he went to the US to score more goals and then he went to Australia to score more goals. Incredible. In Australia, Adelaide, he played. Yeah. Yeah. Quite the thought. You wouldn't get that sort of thing happening these days, for sure. I know. Yeah. Well, but after trying various different continents in his quest for goals at the age of 41 on the 20th of May 2007. He stepped up to the spot and put away a penalty for Vasco against Sport Recife.

59:13Cue pandemonium. The game was suspended for 20 minutes to allow adequate celebrations of this achievement. Scenes. No, it's brilliant because you have this, it's minute two of the second half, okay? And there's a penalty. and Romário wanted to score his 1 ,000 goal at Maracanã. And he had two chances to do that because they played Botafogo there and he had two massive chances and he missed. And then Vasco transferred one of their games with a smaller team to Maracanã for him to score the goal. He didn't score the goal. And then the match against Sport was at San Januario at Vasco's stadium. Okay.

59:55And then he scores with the penalty and you have this invasion of reporters and cameras on the pitch, just everyone just elbowing each other to try to get to Romario. All of a sudden, Romario's mom is on the pitch, giving him a shirt, and they're hugging and crying. And then Romario's daughters, like he's holding two of his youngest daughters. There's a cow dribbling. It's just incredible, really. The scenes are amazing. But, of course, there are a lot of question marks on the number. Well, you may have question marks, but Romario doesn't. He said, I had the opportunity to achieve this milestone, not only for myself, my parents and my family, but for the whole world.

1:00:38And I hope we're all very grateful. It was God who wanted the ball to go into the net today. It's an extraordinary moment in my life, and I think all of ours, by extension. FIFA. Ooh. Ooh. FIFA only recognized 760 of his goals, the curmudgeons. That's rough. As being in official matches between clubs, the senior national team, and the Olympic side, which makes him the fourth highest scorer in football history. They do concede that if you include youth team efforts, you can eke it out to 929. So there's a rogue 71 goals out there somewhere. Which version do you want to believe?

1:01:19James Richardson: I mean, it's not too late. There was a story just earlier this year, or maybe last, that he was registering himself. He now is a director of sporting, advisor or something, with America, kind of historic. Right. In Rio. His son was playing for them at the time, Romarino. And he, I think he must have been late 50s. He registered himself. Yeah, registered himself, hoping to play one final game with his son. Nice. You know, he's so good, he may still have scored 71 goals in that game. What's his son like? I mean, I don't think I'm being too harsh to suggest not that great. Right, okay. It's a tough act to follow being Romário's son.

1:02:07But it was a nice story because Romário was on the bench for a few games. But because America was struggling at the league, they were like, okay, he's not going to play because the technical part needs to come first. But Romario said when, like, the first game he was on the bench and he didn't come in, he said, no, it's fine. I'm not going to sack the manager. I'm not going to sack the coach this time, you know, because he fell out with so many coaches throughout his career. But it was a lovely story. And America, because his dad was an America fan. America is a very small club in Rio. It's the type of club that everyone kind of likes, you know.

1:02:45Okay. And this is why he became president of the club. And this is why he registered himself to try and play there. Well, having retired previously as a player, he concentrated his efforts on politics and latterly YouTube. This is an interesting development. He has, is it Romario TV? That's the name of the channel. on which there was some talk that he was going to be hosting live Bundesliga matches. I looked, but I couldn't see any. Maybe that's happening later on in the season. Bundesliga is taking a very original approach to the distribution of its rights, but apparently you can see some games or will be able to see some games on Romario TV.

1:03:32Well, you can also see him talking about a lot of things with a lot of footballers. There's interviews with all sorts of face-to-faces with Romario. and there's, I can't think who the English player is. Wayne Rooney. There's Wayne Rooney there. I think there's somebody else as well. But do check it out. Fabio Cannavaro. Really? Yes, yes. A few good names. People want to talk to Romario, you know. It's fair enough. He's an interesting guy with lots of interesting things to say. How would you judge his political career? Perhaps we should address that to Natalie as a more directly interested party.

1:04:06But Jack, I don't know if you've got thoughts as well.

1:04:09James Richardson: You could sum it up as fluctuating. He hasn't been particularly bound to one party. He's moved a lot. He's currently with the Bolsonaro-aligned Liberal Party. When you say Liberal Party, is that a proper name or as an adjective? It is their name, but it is objectively wrong. Yeah. So, yeah, he's been known. He's spoken out a lot. probably when he was most prominent was around the World Cup that Brazil hosted. He was very vocal about what he saw as, I think he used the word corruption, but I think he didn't like the way that funds were being diverted to this massive global event when obviously in many other areas of Brazilian society, money is lacking.

1:05:02James Richardson: So he was very prominent around that time. He's done a lot with sports legislation, a lot around disability rights. His daughter has Down syndrome, so he's been a real advocate for that. But yeah, there has been a gradual move towards the right of the spectrum. As usual for a former player. He was aligned with Jair Bolsonaro, former president who is arrested. and now he kind of distanced himself of Bolsonaro's family and bolsonarismo in general and very recently he left the party so now he's not affiliated to any party but he was a part of the Liberal Party for quite some time even though he started fluctuating is a perfect word to describe it because he started more aligned with the left.

1:06:01And this is one of the reasons why him and Bebeto fell out because Bebeto is aligned with more left-handed parties and politics got in the way. But now apparently they patched things up. And you can watch an interview from Romário with Bebeto at Romário TV. That's nice. Edmundo, I note, hasn't gone into politics. And that is politics is loss, I think. I worked with Edmundo. Did you? Yeah, I did for quite some time. How was that, Natalie? He's an interesting... I would say. Yeah, he's an interesting character, yes. Where was this, at Globo? No, it was before. It was at Bungie. He was one of the pundits.

1:06:45And we did quite a few games together. And everyone was kind of careful around him. Even though he was low-key, he was a low-key guy, but, you know, everyone knew he could be explosive. And he gave me one of the best explanations of how footballers feel about different clubs that they played for a long time. Because he played for Vasco and for Palmeiras. And whenever you ask him which ones you like the most, and he said, it's like the love of your wife and the love of your mother. They're just different. Ah, okay. Yes. Nice. There you go. Didn't play for Swindon.

1:07:26James Richardson: Or Wickham. Oh, come on. Well, there you go. That's Romário. Well, that's Edmundo. But mostly that was Romário. And I'm sure so many other stories we could tell. Duncan, do you have an answer, meanwhile, to your quiz question? English quiz. So we've got, just to reestablish, the first five Brazilians to score in the Premier League. We're missing number one. Number two was? Juninho. Number three? Emerson. And number four? Emerson Tome. Ooh, sneaky. The first one was at the start of the 95, 96 season, which obviously is the season that Juninho played for Middlesbrough. Isaias. Yes. Yes. For Coventry City.

1:08:13Yeah. Wow. Deep cut. Deep cut. Yeah, nice. And then the fifth player was in 2000.

1:08:23and was a defender. Scored a very good goal at Sanford Bridge, I seem to recall. 2000. Can we get a club, please? Arsenal.

1:08:38James Richardson: Left back. Silvinho. Silvinho. Oh, I should know that. I like Silvinho. He played through conditions. He was all the way in 2000, eight years on, he was only the fifth Brazilian to score in the Premier League. And the next two after that were Edu and Gilberto Silva. Wow. Very much moving into the sort of everyone's got a Brazilian. Gunnosphere. Yeah. Crikey. Should we finish off with a final excerpt from the Tao of Romário? He told the Players' Tribune, My old man had five commandments. Don't drink wine. Don't do drugs. Don't let anyone f*** with you. When you shake somebody's hand, do it hard and look them in the eye.

1:09:17And don't fly a kite. Did I follow them? Amen. what's the kite business?

1:09:24James Richardson: This kite thing is a very it's very cultural Brazilian thing it's something that it's not a kite a big kite like we imagine it's all faffy it's like a very small bit of fabric on a very thin string and you kind of flick it flick it and it kind of goes up but it's associated with killing time when you haven't got loads of money to do other things so he doesn't literally mean it's like a time wasting thing So I guess in this context, it would have been like, don't waste your time flying kites. Right, go fly a kite, people might say in this country, even if they might not. Don't doom squirrel. Right, but those are some maxims to live by.

1:10:08And Romário says he's only afraid of three things. Oh, yeah? Cows? No. Flying, needles, and dogs. the dogs i'd heard about so flying he doesn't like flying yeah and he says that in the context of of course i wasn't intimidated to you know to the the penalty shootout in 94 of course i wasn't afraid i'm only afraid of three things flying needles and dogs right i really expected the third one to be like training clowns even you know because there's some scary things right yeah All right, magnificent. Romario, anything you want to add before we park this particular Totally Extra? Jack, thank you so much for that, especially in musical interlude.

1:10:51But all of that context and color on an iconic career that, yes, has been a little bit overshadowed by some other and perhaps even lesser players who've followed in Romario's wake. Duncan, thank you as well for being with us today. And Natalie, so glad we were able to arrange this together. Obrigado. to you I was here thanks as well to producers Xavi and Jesse and to you listener I do hope you've enjoyed and that you'll join us for another Totally Extra soon for now though from all of us here it's goodbye

1:11:32you've been listening to the Totally Football Show part of the Athletic FC podcast network for more great podcasts just like this one including the Athletic FC and our dedicated club podcast Search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places. We're also at The Totally Football Show on Insta and at The Totally Show on YouTube. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production.

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