This article is part of our Greatest Of All Time series. We will be looking back at previous World Cup tournaments and identifying the GOATs within a number of different categories. Part one on the greatest goals is here. Part two on World Cup exits is here.There is perhaps no better stage for a sportsman to prove their brilliance than at a World Cup. There have been 22 previous tournaments, and although no nation has won the trophy without several of its key players performing, there are certain individuals whose contribution to a World Cup win has been so momentous that simply mentioning their name and a year is shorthand for an entire tournament.Here, then, are five of the greatest World Cup-winning individuals.Romario, Brazil 1994The Brazil of 1994 were not as exciting as the sides of 1958, 1962 or 1970. They played a fairly rigid 4-4-2, and then basically left Romario and Bebeto up front, and allowed them to do what they wanted. The two weren’t on good terms, but they worked excellently together, and Romario was outstanding. “Romario is short on humility, long on talent,” read a New York Times headline shortly before the tournament in the United States.Brazil hadn’t had many world-class attackers for a few years, and the nation was also mourning its greatest national hero of the time, Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna, who had been killed in a crash at the San Marino Grand Prix the previous month. “With Senna’s death, Brazil has been left with a void,” Romario said before the World Cup started. “If I can lead Brazil to a fourth World Cup title, I will definitely be a possible replacement.”He did. He scored in all three group games, most memorably with a clever toe-poke in the final group game against Sweden. He didn’t slow down in the knockout stage, scoring from Bebeto’s cross in the quarter-final win over the Netherlands, and then in another meeting against Sweden in the semi-final, scored the only goal with a far-post header.Romario celebrates scoring against the Netherlands in the quarter-finals (Bob Daemmrich/AFP via Getty Images)Romario had electric pace, particularly in terms of his acceleration over a short space. He wasn’t a mesmeric dribbler or a particularly gifted creator — and sometimes there were long spells when you didn’t notice him — but his penalty-box prowess was legendary. This was a tight World Cup, and a cautious Brazil side. But the notable thing about Romario’s tournament is that all five of his goals were openers.A little like Garrincha in 1962, he wasn’t 100 per cent fit for the final and couldn’t provide a decisive moment. In a match that was pitted as a showdown between him and Italy’s Roberto Baggio, the latter settled the final… by blazing over the bar in the penalty shootout.