Everything pointed towards retirement. And, boy, he\u2019d earned it.<\/p>\n
The man Diego Armando Maradona called \u201cone of the best full-backs\u201d I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d and \u201cthe third best player in the world behind Leo [Messi] and Cristiano [Ronaldo]\u201d had spent nigh on two decades infusing \u2018O Jogo Bonito\u2019 with beauty. Blessed with Zinedine Zidane\u2019s touch and flair elite dribblers would be proud of, Marcelo had departed the Bernabeu in mid-2022 as the most decorated player in Real Madrid\u2019s 120-year history, had won two Olympic medals with Brazil, been named in two FIFA World Cup\u2122 All-Star Teams and six FIFA FIFPRO Men’s World 11s.The left-back had joined Olympiacos but, in five months in Piraeus, had failed to start a single league match. It was time, they said, for Marcelo to hang up his boots, spend time with his stunning wife Clarice, youngest son Liam \u2013 an aspiring footballer on the books of Fluminense \u2013 and mammoth Newfoundland dog Kora in Brazil, look after the career of his eldest son Enzo, a Spain U-15 boy wonder wowing at Real Madrid, in Spain, work on his business activities and enjoy the fruits of his success.<\/p>\n
But Marcelo had unfinished business in Laranjeiras. Marcelo had left his boyhood club, lump in throat, as an 18-year-old in 2007. He was determined to return. Since doing so he has inspired the greatest chapter in Fluminense\u2019s glorious history.<\/p>\n
FIFA sat down with Marcelo to discuss conquering the Copa Libertadores, Flu\u2019s FIFA Club World Cup Saudi Arabia 2023\u2122 quest, winning the competition four times with Real Madrid, the quality of Jhon Arias and German Cano, and working under \u201cincredible\u201d Fernando Diniz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Everything pointed towards retirement. And, boy, he\u2019d earned it. The man Diego Armando Maradona called \u201cone of the best full-backs\u201d I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d and \u201cthe third best player in the world behind Leo [Messi] and Cristiano [Ronaldo]\u201d had spent nigh on two decades infusing \u2018O Jogo Bonito\u2019 with beauty. Blessed with Zinedine Zidane\u2019s touch and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":918710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20966],"tags":[9648,27192],"class_list":["post-918707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-news","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=918707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/918710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=918707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=918707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=918707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}