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Mr. LoweSpain writer
There is a tattoo on Marcelo’s left thigh, just above the knee, and he was hiding until he tied his shorts. The image of the European Cup is inked on his skin. Below are four numbers, four years, four moments when history was made: 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018. There is only room for one more, which might come in handy because on Saturday night the Real Madrid captain plays his last game for the club, another Cup final. Europe. The last date to be done.
It doesn’t mean he feels pressured. Oh wait, yes it is. On Tuesday afternoon, when Marcelo was told he was a man who never seemed to get nervous, he responded with: “Eh? What? Who told you that?” Then he exploded, giggling again – but that’s dangerous, and so is he. He said there are always demands and pressure, and after experiencing those finals – after winning four Champions League titles – he doesn’t change that. “This has absolutely no weight in a final like this,” he insisted. “Every final we almost had to die on the pitch and this would not be any different. We have to leave our soul there.”
If he gets to the playing field, that is. Marcelo started against Espanyol two weeks ago, captaining the team that had just won the league title, and came into against Real Betis at the end of the last week, but that was more reward than required: a chance to bid farewell to Santiago Bernabeu, who stood up and handed him a standing ovation when he was presented and slipped his armband Driving the captain on his arm for what was likely to be the last time.
It was only Espanyol’s fifth start in the league this season. He has played only 99 minutes in the Champions League, spread over three substitute matches. Nor is it just this season: In the past three seasons, his league appearances have been as follows: 15, 16, 12. When Marcelo turned 34 in May, Isco posted a message on social media wishing him a happy birthday alongside a photo of the two of them. On the field together. Isco joked that it was hard to find a picture when we were playing.
Santi Solari, Zinedine Zidane, Carlo Ancelotti: all of them concluded that Marcelo was no longer the first option, or sometimes even the second. It’s been a while so far, the list of candidates given a chance in front of him at left-back: Sergio Reguilon, Miguel Gutierrez, Ferland Mendy. When there were absences, others were posted there in his place: David Alaba, Nacho, and even Eduardo Camavinga. Marcelo’s contribution waned, and trust in him waned, too.
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Sometimes, in fact, it was kind of easy to forget that Marcelo was still there, and maybe even wonder how he was still there. There was a weak point with him that was confirmed by the stats. Soon, it won’t be. He might have gone sooner, but that’s how his career ends here, in another final.
Or is it? Because if everyone thinks the end has come, Marcelo resists it. It hasn’t always been easy to manage his decline: in a season where Ancelotti spoke of having no dressing room problems at all, Marcelo was close to everyone else. He mostly accepts his role even when he wants more, but it hasn’t been easy to accommodate and resist the calls of time. It is worth noting that one of his matches in the Champions League was against Chelsea. Late 3-0 and Madrid outside; It ended with a score of 3-2 and Real Madrid qualified.
His contract is about to expire, there is no offer to renew, but he prefers to stay: even on a lower salary, part marginal, and perhaps partly pastoral, although he wants to play. This week he’s been talking about sitting on his sofa at home one day in the future and watching these kids play, and he’s thinking: They’re good. Also thinking about his role in helping them get there.
Just not yet. He postponed his departure or tried. He feels the club is coming to an end when he’s not ready to walk away, and frankly, he’s not happy about it. During the Betis match there was a beautiful moment when Joaquin ran towards him. Looking at the photo, she could have come any time since 2007. After that match, though, there was no official farewell, not least because he resisted the idea of it being a farewell at all. Asked this week what will happen next, he replied: “Do you know what will happen tomorrow?
“number.”
“I and no. So…”
“Do you have an idea of what you want?”
“Yes. I have a clear idea. I have a clear idea.”
“Do you want to stay?”
“You’ve said 50,000 times, but you’ll find out.”
Whatever happens, the final comes first. It’s his fifth.
At first, Marcelo didn’t start – Ancelotti decided Fabio Coentrao was the best option – but he came an hour later and scored a goal. He described it as an “explosion of pleasure”. “I don’t know, it’s an impossible thing to explain. A movie that’s been running in your head since you were little, all in five seconds. It’s crazy.” In the other three he played every minute, scoring in the penalty shootout at Milan in 2016. The only player who didn’t join training at the start of the week would be fit, but it’s possible, maybe even likely, that he doesn’t play a minute in Paris.
Which might make his devotion of these lines a little strange, but if that’s the end, this is a moment to define. We are talking about the best left-back in Real Madrid’s history.
Now, some of you might be putting your foot in the screen when proposing. Some of you might be screaming: No, we are not. This, after all, is the club that had Roberto Carlos. And you may be right. But the fact that it is even possible to prove the case makes the case. Even being considered alongside Roberto Carlos, the player who had the huge task of replacing him and somehow managed to do so, speaks to Marcelo’s influence. And back to his leg:
Four European Cups.
This is more than Roberto Carlos. Marcelo played more than Roberto Carlos, 546 games against 527. Karim Benzema is the only foreign-born player to have featured for Madrid. This is Marcelo’s 16th season, and you don’t get just those. (Even if critics of the past two seasons have felt a little like that.) “I live in the moment and this is one of them: to play for many years at the best club in the world,” he says. There were 38 goals, 103 assists and a large number of winners’ medals.
Win on Saturday and Paco Gento will be the only player in the world to win more European Cups. When it came to the top jackpots, Marcelo had already surpassed Gento – there was a fun moment not long ago, a glimpse of Marcelo’s pride, when he and a radio reporter argued over whether the pair were really level or if he was ahead. The club and radio reporter, unlike others, listed the Small Club World Cup from 1956. Marcelo’s wrath made clear how much he cares about history and his legacy.
Win on Saturday and there will be no debate. In any case, he has won 24 titles, including six League titles and four European Cups. Nobody in the history of Madrid has more. If this is the end, it is a moment to define.
Nor are they just numbers, although they help make a legacy-defining cause. It’s about the way he played. Tech and mood too. Feeling that this was something to be enjoyed – even though this is serious business as fun is seen as shady. Like you’re not supposed to smile or have fun with it. Marcelo defied it, that he doesn’t conform, and that’s something to celebrate. It’s not like he was the classic offensive linebacker, and he flew outside. His game was about to go in, the touch on the ball, the five-player in it. It was fun and different.
Players like him come under the scrutiny that a steady full-back never faces, as if attacking and creating is a crime. Responsibility is the line. and there be Moments, that’s right, easy to spot and grab, take down and use in evidence against him.
There is a beautiful sentence from the beginning of his career when he confessed: “I go, I go, I go and sometimes I forget to come back.” But you make a choice, and for more than a decade in the most demanding club of all time, it was the right choice. You wouldn’t achieve what Marcelo achieved if you weren’t an exceptional footballer, a man who changes games for the better, over and over again, if you weren’t serious, a competitor too. If you can not defend. Above all, if you can’t gameMarcelo game. You don’t have access to games like this, the biggest of them all. Marcelo is about to play his fifth role.
Ancelotti has spoken this season about the value of pessimistic defenders who expect the worst. Marcelo has always been an optimist. Just look at the space he left on his leg.
