Real Madrid legend Marcelo joined the club in 2007 from Fluminense and spent 15 years in the Spanish capital, winning everything there was to conquer in club football.

He departed in 2022 and spent four months in Greece before returning home to Fluminese in February 2023.

His time at his boyhood club, however, has come to a screeching halt as of last night after massive drama unfolded on the touchlines of the team’s latest game against Gremio.

A feud with the manager

During Fluminese’s recent outing, manager Mano Menezes was preparing a double change in the 89th minute of the game and prepared Marcelo to come onto the field. The score was 2-1 in their favour and he was giving his final instructions to the defender.

The Brazilian, however, commented something the coach ‘did not like’, clearly in bad taste, and Menezes pushed the player back to the bench and annulled his substitution. Eventually, Gremio scored an equaliser in the final minute and salvaged a point.

Hours after the full-time whistle, Fluminese released an official statement that the club and Marcelo had mutually agreed to terminate the player’s contract, bringing his time with his boyhood club to an end.

They did, however, mention that the ‘institutional and emotional ties’ with the player would be maintained and that his name would continue to adorn the stadium of the Xerem training centre where it was recently immortalised.

Reports suggest that tensions between Marcelo and the administration have been ongoing for a long time now and that this was just the final nail in the coffin.

The decision, however, was not made hastily as a meeting was held at CT Carlos Castilho where all possibilities were considered and all the parties involved mutually arrived at the decision.