MADRID, 30 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Brazilian Marcelo Vieira has become this Saturday the Real Madrid player with the most titles throughout its history after raising his conquests with the meringues to 24 and surpassing the legend Francisco Gento, who died last January.
Marcelo, 33 years old, arrived at Real Madrid in the winter of 2006, at the hands of then president Ramón Calderón and sports director Pedja Mijatovic, a commitment to the future that was soon consolidated on the left side despite the long shadow of Roberto Carlos, his predecessor in the left-handed lane.
The defender from Rio de Janeiro made his debut with Real Madrid on January 7, 2007, in a match against Deportivo de la Coruña, but in that League he did not have much relevance. At just 18 years old, he played six games in that championship, only one as a starter and one complete, but enough to add his first title as a merengue to the record.
The comeback League -with Fabio Capello on the bench- was Marcelo’s first foray into the Spanish capital, where he gained weight in subsequent seasons. In the following, after the departure of Roberto Carlos to Fenerbahce and the arrival of Bernd Schuster as team leader, they gave him license to become the German coach’s first choice.
A total of 24 games – all as a starter – earned him a new league title, his second as a Real Madrid player, and the prelude to his confirmation as a left-back at one of the most demanding clubs in the world. In the following seasons he lifted four titles: two Spanish Super Cups, one Copa del Rey and his third League.
In total, six titles in his first seven seasons and that’s when Carlo Ancelotti arrived in his initial stage. Marcelo was already considered one of the best full-backs on the continent, an absolute and consolidated international, he was proclaimed champion of the Confederations Cup that summer in 2013 at the expense of the Spanish team.
Then began the most glorious period of his career as a merengue. Marcelo won titles for seven consecutive seasons: among them four ‘Champions’, the first of which was fundamental with a goal in extra time against Atlético de Madrid at the Da Luz stadium in Lisbon, although, curiously, the starting left back then was the Portuguese Fabio Coentrao.
In addition, two more Leagues to his record and three Club World Cups, a Spanish Super Cup and his second Copa del Rey as a madridista. In total, 22 wounded at the end of the 2019-20 campaign that left him two to beat Paco Gento, who reached the figure of 23 between the 1953-54 and 1970/71 seasons, in all of them with some title except of the last.
Marcelo left empty-handed last season for the second time as a Real Madrid player -the previous one was 2009/10- but this year he equaled the ‘Galerna del Cantábrico’ with the Spanish Super Cup won in Riyadh on January 16, just two days before Gento’s passing.
With the League won this Saturday -the third in 24 titles- Marcelo surpasses the man from Santander and becomes the most successful Real Madrid player at a collective level in all history. Behind him are other emblematic players such as Sergio Ramos (22), Manolo Sanchís (21), Karim Benzema (21) -who could surpass him next year- and José Antonio Camacho (19).
