‘I’d woken up at 7am, still tired because the day before we’d been drinking. I thought, “Today I’m not drinking anything.” But by 8.10am we were back at it!’ Marcelo on his romantic Fluminense return

When a player returns to their boyhood club at the end of a prestigious career, it is often a mere exercise in nostalgia.

It’s a chance for the club to sell more shirts and tickets, while the player can wind down in a familiar setting.

But when Marcelo made a romantic return to Fluminense in 2023, 16 years after he left the club to join Real Madrid, he would get a dream ending to his career.

Marcelo’s fairytale return

“After a short spell at Olympiacos, I felt I owed that to Fluminense,” Marcelo tells FourFourTwo when reflecting on his return to his first club.

“I felt I had to go back – not necessarily to win a title, but because everything the club did for me was extraordinary. It gave me the foundations, an education in every sense, and the possibility of becoming what I became.

“When I returned, the feelings were the same – the affection of the people, the atmosphere, the passion. There were around 10 people who’d worked with me in the youth teams who were still there.

“It was a dream to wear the Fluminense shirt again and winning the Libertadores was the perfect ending to the story. To win it at the Maracana was spectacular, too.”

That Libertadores victory came in November 2023, with a 2-1 win over Boca Juniors at the iconic Rio venue and meant that Marcelo became just the 12th player to win both the Champions League and the Copa Libertadores.

And the left-back’s celebrations were worthy of such an accomplishment.

“It felt like an authentic carnival,” the 37-year-old adds. “There was an open-top bus, the celebration began at 8am and I had woken up at 7am, still tired because the day before we’d been drinking.

“I thought, ‘Today I’m not drinking anything.’ I had a calm breakfast, but by 8.10am we were back at it again! It was an incredible party.

“A very special day because of all the places we went through. I’m from Rio de Janeiro, so travelling around my city, through the streets I used to walk as a child, was emotional. Those were my origins, my roots.

“The bus moved through different areas and my mind kept going back to those memories. At one point, I saw three friends I’d studied with in the crowd. That was incredible.”