Romario, at Barcelona one of the goals that became legend

At almost twenty-eight he decided that the time had come to invent something new and offer it to the people who had always been so generous to him. It was his way of returning the affection received. As if to say: now I’m giving you this magic and so we’re even. Romario de Souza Faria, Barcelona’s Brazilian centre-forward, prepared all week for the test of truth. To be honest, according to the testimonies of his teammates, he had been working at that “number” for some time, he stopped on the training pitch while the others went back to the locker room and there, alone, he tried and tried again, he corrected one movement, improved it, then another, and another, until he was exhausted by tiredness and then he too gave himself up to the warm jet of the shower. After many attempts he now felt that the time had come. And precisely on the day that his fans, the Barcelona fans, considered the most important of the year. It was 8 January 1994, the “Clasico” was taking place at the Camp Nou: a match between the Blaugrana and Real Madrid. A jolt of electricity ran through the whole of Spain.