I’m gonna tell you guys one of the greatest true stories of Brazilian football.
The year was 1994. Brazil hadn’t won the men’s World Cup in 24 years, which (until then 🥲) had been our longest dry spell since we won our first title in 1958.
And then, in 1994, we had finally assembled the super team. And this team’s main star was none other than Romário.
In May, disaster struck. Romário’s father was kidnapped in Rio by a group of criminals, who demanded a $7 million ransom.
Romário, who played in Barcelona at the time, flew back to Rio. But instead of negotiating with the criminals for his father’s ransom, or even pleading with the local police, Romário called the press.
He announced to the Brazilian public that if his father was not returned unharmed immediately, he would not travel to the World Cup, which was set to start in a few weeks.
You don’t get it. This was catastrophic news to the country. We couldn’t win this WC without Romário. It’s like Argentina winning the WC without Messi. Romário essentially told these criminals that if we lost the 1994 World Cup, it would be their fault.
This caused absolute chaos in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The local police turned the city upside down hunting these guys. All of the cartels issued bounties on them. It was open fucking season on these guys. Even normal ass people were on the streets of Rio looking for them.
You had cops, crime bosses, drug lords, regular people, fucking EVERYBODY in Rio was hunting down these kidnappers. It was insane.
The pressure was so great that within 4 days, Romário’s father was released, unharmed, without a cent of the ransom being paid.
And so, Romário traveled to the World Cup, and brought home our 4th trophy.
That’s him holding the cup. All because the city of Rio went on a 4 day rampage manhunt to rescue his father.
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