Full squad list of the 1994 Brazil World Cup Team： Where are the champions now？

Man, I don’t know why, but I suddenly woke up last week and had this dumb thought stuck in my head: I only really remember like four guys from that legendary 1994 Brazil World Cup team. You know the one. The yellow jerseys, the final penalty shootout, Romário, Bebeto. The good old days.

I was just scrolling through some old soccer clips, procrastinating on some actual work I should have been doing, and I saw a replay of that final match against Italy. Baggio misses, Brazil wins. But then I started looking at the full team photo, and I realized I couldn’t name half the guys standing there. Everyone remembers the rock stars, but who were the guys holding up the back line? The subs who never even got on the pitch? Where the heck did they all go?

So, I started my little investigation. And let me tell you, trying to piece together a full 22-man squad list from 30 years ago is a real headache. Every sports site gives you the starting eleven, maybe the coach, and then they stop. I didn’t just want the famous faces; I wanted the full official roster, the guys who got the medal but maybe only played 10 minutes total across the whole tournament. I treated it like a proper project, breaking it down into steps.

First, I had to confirm the names. I pulled data from three different sources—two fan sites and the Wikipedia entry, which is usually decent for this stuff—and I cross-referenced them. You wouldn’t believe how many sites mix up the names between the 1990 and 1994 squads. I locked in the list. Guys like Aldair, Márcio Santos, Mazinho, Viola—names that are maybe only known to the hardcore fans now. Once the list was solid, the real work began: finding out what they’ve been doing for the last three decades.

Tracking the superstars is easy. You type “Romário” into a search bar, and bam, you know he’s a politician now. You type “Dunga,” and you see he’s been coaching all over the place. Taffarel is still kicking around the big clubs as a goalkeeping coach. Piece of cake. That part maybe took me five minutes.

The actual practice, the grind, was hunting down the guys who seemed to just vanish off the face of the Earth. I’m talking about guys like Ronaldão, the defender, or Paulo Sérgio, the forward. Their initial search results were just old team photos. I had to dig through forums, find snippets of interviews in Portuguese, and translate articles from local Brazilian news outlets. It was detective work, honest to God.

I wasn’t looking for their whole life story, just their current gig. Are they still involved in football? Are they running a farm? Did they start a weird business? I had to filter out so much junk—outdated news, guys with the same name, stuff that was just flat-out wrong.

Here’s the rundown of some of the trickier ones I finally nailed down:

• Rai (Midfielder): I knew he was good, but I was surprised to find out he’s spent a massive amount of his time focused on social responsibility. I mean, he’s full-on running a foundation. Not just a token thing. He’s doing serious charity work.
• Jorginho (Right-Back): After retiring, he totally went into coaching but also became super religious, focusing his efforts on Christian-based football projects. It’s a whole side hustle and spiritual calling for him.
• Viola (Forward): This guy was a real surprise. A few years ago, he was playing semi-pro indoor football—like, way past his prime. He’s the definition of a player who just loves the game and never wants to quit, even if it’s just local matches. He’s been doing some commentary now, too.
• Branco (Left-Back): The guy who scored that incredible free kick against Holland. You’d think he’d be a big-time coach, but he’s been mostly involved with the Brazilian Football Confederation in various management roles, often working with youth teams and national development.
• Zetti (Goalkeeper): The backup keeper. The one I had the most trouble with. Turns out he mostly got into training other keepers and doing development work back in Brazil. He keeps a really low profile compared to Taffarel.

Okay, now for the part that sounds a little crazy and kind of mirrors why I do any of this documenting stuff. You might be wondering why I wasted two good evenings tracking down old soccer players. It wasn’t just a random whim.

I was in the middle of a seriously frustrating situation with my landlord. We had a huge dispute over some water damage in my place, and I had been going back and forth with him for weeks, all tied up in bureaucracy, emails, and phone calls—just a total mess of details and nonsense. I was feeling so defeated, just totally overwhelmed by a stupid simple problem that was turning into a giant, ugly project.

I put on the 1994 Netherlands vs. Brazil game just to have some noise, trying to cool down. And I saw Branco’s goal again. The commentator said something like, “Simplicity under pressure.” That team was facing all this hype, all this pressure, the weight of the world, and they just executed the basics perfectly. They didn’t overcomplicate it. They got the job done. Finished the task.

It hit me right then: my dispute, my work problem, my life—it felt like a sprawling, disorganized jungle. I needed a simple, clean, finishable project to reset my brain. Something where I could start, process the data, and achieve a concrete result. So, I switched off the legal documents and dove into finding the 1994 squad. It was my way of regaining control and proving to myself I could still finish a complicated job cleanly, even if the job was just tracking down a guy named Mazinho.

That’s the real practice log. It wasn’t about the football; it was about bringing order to the chaos in my own head. And now I have the whole list, I know what they’re all up to, and frankly, my landlord problem still hasn’t been solved, but at least I know what Ronaldão is doing now.