This hub is the fourth in a series of small tributes to some of the world's greatest ever soccer players, these will be appearing in no particular order and the series has no fixed amount of players to feature! The inspiration behind this series is my hub 'The Best 5 Footballers of the Nineties', this profile of Romario is almost identical to the one on that feature. Look out for more to come in the series, which I will eventually interlink at the bottom of each hub!

It was with great reluctance that I placed Romario at 5th on my list of The 5 Best Footballer of The Nineties, and that is because I genuinely believe that he was more naturally gifted technically than either Rivaldo or Baggio. Such was his ability that Johan Cruyff described him as "a genius of the goal area". And that is no overstatement, there is no doubting that Romario is a better finisher of goals than any of the players on this list. In fact, he was a pure goal machine. The problem is, he did not remain at the top of world football for long enough, out of his own choice.

After winning the Dutch league in 1991 and 1992 he moved to FC Barcelona in 1993. His first year in Spain saw him win the league with Barcelona and become the leagues top scorer with a prolific 30 goals in 33 games. At the end of the season he was on a plane to Atlanta for the 1994 World Cup with the Brazilian national team, the same squad that contained an unused 17 year old Ronaldo and the same team that subsequently won. At the end of 1992 Romario, was named the Fifa World Player of the Year, after coming second in 1993. Romario chose to leave Europe in 1995 after a disappointing season with Barcelona that was marred by injury and personal problems. A short and unproductive spell with Valencia followed and he was left out of the Brazil World Cup squad in 1998. It was rumoured that he had fallen out with the national coach, although the national coach insisted that the decision was as a result of his loss of form. Romario was also left out in 2002 with the coach stating indiscipline as the reason, this is despite Romario being in good form.

Romario spent most of his career in Brazil playing for numerous clubs and rediscovered his form and impressive goal scoring exploits. Romario also had a spell in Saudi Arabia and then in the MLS with Miami FC in 2006. Despite being 40 years of age, Romario set an MLS record with 19 goals in just 25 appearances. The season prior he had finished as the top scorer in the Brazilian championship. Romario made number of sporadic appearances for Brazil and during his career scored 71 international goals in 85 appearances. Romario retired from playing in 2008 with an amazing 929 officially recognised career goals, believed to be second only to Pele.

Having reflected on Romario and his achievements, as well as doing a fair bit of research, I realise that he probably should have been third on my list. This belief appears to be backed by some of the worlds greatest players. Cryuff, Maradona and Baggio all believe him to be one of the greatest players of all time. If Romario had played in Europe for longer, and in the 1998 and 2002 world cups, would I be putting Romario to the top of my list? Maybe I would.