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| INTERVIEW NIGHTWATCH STAR TAC YOURSELF CORP. THIS MAN IS NOT A MACHINE |
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When Romário was playing for Holland's PSV Eindhoven, he used to call friends to keep him company on the other side of the globe. He paid for everything. "We'd hit three, four night clubs per night," says friend João Paulo Rodrigues. "The man is like a mobile phone battery, he stays put in the car and one even thinks he blacked out. But once we got there he was all refreshed! His instinct for scoring in nightclubs is the same as for scoring goals." A thousand times better than taking his friends along were his vacations in Brazil, whether from Holland or Spain, where he played for Barcelona and, later, for Valencia. "Then we'd party for a month ", says another friend. "All our relationships ended." Missing Rio's heat, Romário would put on his trunks while still in the plane, to go straight to the hat sand. Back to Brazil, in Flamengo's superteam assembled to celebrate the club's centennial, four years ago, all he did was consolidate old friendships. For example, the beaches of Barra da Tijuca produced his attorney and manager, Luiz Moraes. When offered money to hire bodyguards, he called his crowd. "That was the best paid friendship I ever had," kids Hércules Simões, a friend from Vila da Penha, where Romário moved to after being born and spending part of his childhood at Jacarezinho Hill.
How to Score, by Romário de Souza. Basic Rule: Always count on one's friends. In the end of the past year, on launching his 5 million-dollar theme club, Café do Gol, he employed "homies" for positions from security to management. Located right across from Barraca do Pepê, at Barra da Tijuca Beach, Rio de Janeiro, the 3,000 square-meter space hosts about 50 thousand people per month. A mix of tobacco-store, restaurant, theme gallery, bar and nightclub, the venture sealed Romário's marriage to the night. Add to this the beautiful women that attend the place and his friends and you'll get all that he enjoys in life. The summation of an opera with a happy ending, even though the soloist tenor is more like a soccer player.
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