Marcelo exclusive interview: “Every time Madrid play, I get nervous”

Real Madrid legend Marcelo sits inside the state-of-the-art training complex on the outskirts of the Spanish capital, where he’s agreed to a brief chat.

As a full-back in Spain between 2007 and 2022, the Brazilian won it all. And that experience means “going as they are now, keep winning games” is all that’s needed to answer my first question about what Los Blancos will be looking to do from now to the end of the season.

Marcelo is actually here on a good-will mission. Abbott’s Dream Team program seeks out talented players from across the United States who are invited to train in Madrid and Marcelo is their much-loved mentor.

“I think Abbott is doing a spectacular job talking about health, mental health, physical health,” he says. “For example, my son is 16-years-old, which is [almost] the same age as the young players who will have the opportunity to come here to Real Madrid (18 to 19-years-old).

Maybe I would have played for longer or reached 40 if I had understood better what they are learning here and how Abbott does it. I think that is very important for a footballer’s career.”

“Every time Madrid play, I get nervous”

“Many children want to be footballers but they do not understand the sacrifice behind it; if you invest in your body you can go further, and that is exactly what we try to do here.”

On his role in the program, Marcelo says he is there “to try to help my children if they want to be footballers and to explain my experiences,” which is an experience that gives him a nostalgic feeling.

“When I see the children on the pitch it is like a film playing in my head. I wish that in my time there had been someone with a lot of experience who had lived so many things at a club as big as Real Madrid to tell me, “Marcelo, do this, it will be better for you, don’t eat this”.

“I wish there had been a person like that. I think they are lucky to have the biggest club in the world opening its doors so they can understand these kinds of things. And they have the opportunity to enter the world of Madrid, at the training ground, with the best facilities in the world.”

But don’t be fooled. Marcelo is curt when asked whether or not moving from mentor to coach is an idea he’s prepared to entertain: “No.”

I get my shovel out and dig. Why? Such a talented player with experience at the top who also is showing an interest in young players, doesn’t it make sense? “I don’t know, I just don’t feel like it,” he bats back.

But that passion is there for Madrid. “Every time Madrid play, I get nervous,” he reveals. “Of course I cannot intervene in things on the pitch, but I still get very nervous and I still feel that I am part of Real Madrid. It is impossible to leave it.”

Shovel now out, I go deeper. Marcelo won 5 Champions Leagues at Madrid, arguably the most memorable of them all - La Décima - under Carlo Ancelotti, Brazil’s head coach.

Despite this unique experience, Marcelo can’t pin down the exact quality that makes him so special. “It is very difficult for me to say what Ancelotti’s qualities are, as I’m not a coach. As for his personality, he’s as you’d expect: very close to people and a very good person.”

“I don’t watch football now. I don’t watch football to analyse it”

Watching Real Madrid, he doesn’t think like a coach either. Or a player. Just a fan. “I don’t do any of that”, comes the reply when I put this idea to him. “I watch the goals they score, I celebrate them and that is it. I don’t watch football now. I don’t watch football to analyse it.”

So it’s a no to football as a pastime, “But I do many things,” he admits, “I like watching films, theatre, fashion from time to time. I am an actor, I am a producer, so I am many things. Football is now on the side.”

“Why would I keep watching football?” he questions when I ask about the excitement of the upcoming World Cup. “I just do not feel like it anymore. I watch my children and Madrid, and that’s it."

Having won it all, Marcelo is a calm man, and not much fazes him. But the feeling of being at Real Madrid is different: “I think the energy at the training complex is like the energy at the Bernabéu. You have to experience it to feel it. When I arrived at Madrid at 18 I already felt the spirit, the DNA of Real Madrid, what it was like. It is still the same today and I think that is why we are here, to help the children and explain how it works.”

And pressure of the Bernabéu… What pressure?

Yes, that was his response.

“I never had any pressure,” he explains when my face curls into a kaleidoscope of incredulity. “I have always been fortunate. In my life I have had a lot of luck. I have also always been surrounded by wonderful people. For me pressure is someone who does not have a car, has to take the bus, wake up early and does not know what they will eat at night.”

“Football for me always was and will always be something fun,” he adds. “For me it was never a job, it was always a lifestyle. Of course with a lot of responsibility, but I enjoyed it enormously. In the end I had the luck to play for the best team in the world, Real Madrid.”

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