After a mammoth 2018-19 season, central defender Pablo Mari’s loan spell at second division Deportivo La Coruna ended in disappointment with a 3-0 defeat at his former club Mallorca on June 23 in the play-off final — a blow made all the more painful because Depor had won the first leg 2-0.
The Galicians, champions of Spain in 2000, are now bottom of the Segunda Division and fighting relegation to the third.
When he left Spain in July, Mari, 26, still had a year left on his contract at Manchester City.
“In my mind, I was moving to Manchester but I’d only been there once for my medical,” he explains to The Athletic having just arrived in Doha for the FIFA Club World Cup. “I signed for City in 2013 but I’ve never met Pep Guardiola or any of the first-team players. I’d love to one day speak to him because he’s one of the greatest ever coaches. And when I signed for City, I did so because I felt that one day, I could play for them.”
City, who signed Mari from second-tier Gimnastic Tarragona, immediately loaned him out to Girona — a City Football Group club. He had a season there in Spain’s second division, then another in Holland for NAC Breda, where he was captain.
“Another fantastic experience to live and play football in a new country,” says Mari. “You know that you are going to move around as a footballer but it gets tiring moving every year. Not just for me but my family too.”
He waited for the next offer, a journeyman with a difference for whom a high had been playing away against Valencia, the team he’d supported as a kid, in a domestic cup. Yet there was no rush of big clubs coming in for someone who’d gone no higher than Spain’s second division.
“I knew him as a very good, left-footed, third division defender who scored four or five goals a season,” says Catalan coach Manolo Marquez, who expresses the surprise many felt in Spain about what happened next. “He was young, he was very strong and great at heading, but there was a lot of room for improvement when he was on the ball. I can’t believe what has happened in his career. I never saw that in him.”
Mari has always been open to new experiences and had enjoyed playing in Holland and in La Coruna. He had never considered not playing in Europe and was shocked to get an offer from Flamengo last summer.
“It’s normally the reverse, with Brazilian players moving to Europe,” says Mari. “I’ve played with several but I didn’t know anyone who moved to play there. But I liked the idea of playing for a huge club and the offer of a three-year contract, which didn’t mean I had to move every year. They told me that they wanted to win titles. Which footballer doesn’t want to win titles?”
He caught a plane to Rio de Janeiro and signed during the close season, moving from City for £1.53 million. It proved to be a smart move.
“It’s a beautiful city, as everyone knows, and we had an apartment near the beach. I started playing straight away.”
Flamengo have long enjoyed nationwide support. They are the most popular and best-supported team in South America, with average crowds of 59,285 in the league and 64,620 in the Copa Libertadores. Playing in the huge Maracana helps, but no other team comes close. Fortaleza are the second best-supported team with 33,832 this season while Boca Juniors of Argentina drew 45,000 in the continent’s premier cup competition.
In November 2019, no team on the planet came close to Flamengo’s 124 million Instagram interactions. Barcelona were second with 79 million.
For Mari, it was some contrast. “I went from playing in front of 5,000-10,000 at away games in Spain to playing in front of 60,000 at the Maracana. It’s incredible. The fans are so noisy, they sing all the time, for 95 minutes, with a rhythm which is different from Europe. It’s not just at home. Flamengo are so popular that when we play in Brasilia, the capital (over 700 miles away), we have 50,000 fans at an away game. It’s completely crazy.”
And play Mari did, for 90 minutes in every game when he was fit. And he did this as Flamengo’s only non-South American player ever. The club was still reeling from a tragic fire which had killed 10 youth players, were third in the league, and had also appointed a new boss Jorge Jesus the same summer. Flamengo hadn’t even impressed in the Libertadores’ group stage, winning their section on goal difference above two other sides.
Jesus, 65, had excelled at Benfica and Sporting before being dismissed by both but the appointment of a European coach was not without critics. No foreign manager has won the league in Brazil since the first year of competition in 1959 but the carpers melted away after Flamengo began winning regularly, operating what was seen a disciplined “European” tactical system of 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2.
Mari, fresh from his loan spell in Spain, has found former Benfica and Sporting Lisbon coach Jesus easy to work for.
“He has been superb for me, not just on the field but off it. He wants you to be the very best footballer you can be and also the best person you can be. He wants players to express themselves but be humble. He wants players to be serious about their football. It’s not easy being 11 hours away by plane from your home but he made it easier for me to adapt — the training ground is top quality too — and the coach is one of the best in the world. It’s a great feeling to have the confidence of your coach.”
After a 3-0 defeat at Bahia on August 4, Flamengo went on a 24-game unbeaten run in the league until a 4-0 defeat at second-placed Santos last week, on the final match-day of the season. But they’d already won the hugely competitive league for the first time in a decade — by 16 points. Along the way, they hammered Rio rivals Vasco da Gama 4-1, defeated Sao Paulo’s two giants Palmeiras 3-0 and Corinthians 4-1.
Mari’s partnership with Rodrigo Caio was one of the keys to the title and that run, which extended to 30 matches, if their Libertadores success is included. They came through the last 16 on penalties against Ecuador’s Emelec before eliminating both Porto Alegre giants Internacional and Gremio, the 2017 champions, in the quarter and semi-finals.
“The 5-0 win against Gremio was the best game I’ve ever played in, a complete performance,” Mari says. “And I scored. There were fans in Maracana five hours before the game.”
Heroes were plentiful; young striker Gabriel ‘Gabigol’ Barbosa, 23, the leading goalscorer in the competition with seven while on loan from Inter Milan, got a brace.
“He wasn’t playing enough at Inter. He’s a huge hero in Flamengo,” says Mari. “He’s still very young but I think he can be one of the best strikers in the world.”
No player has made more assists than Brazilian Bruno Henrique, who arrived in April from Santos. He scored one and set up another in that victory over Gremio.
That meant Flamengo, for whom the term ‘sleeping giant’ could have been invented, reached their first Libertadores final since 1981 when, inspired by Zico, they lifted their only continental title. Zico still attends Flamengo matches. “And he’s been a manager too, so he knows what he is talking about.”
Thirty-eight years after Zico lifted the trophy, Flamengo celebrated their greatest triumph of this season, in the Libertadores final.
It was the first one-off final at a neutral venue in the competition’s 58-year history, after the game against holders River Plate was switched to Lima in Peru after civil protests in Santiago, Chile.
River’s settled side and experience of winning six continental trophies since Marcelo Gallardo took charge in 2014 made them favourites. Those trophies included the 2015 and 2018 Libertadores — River were big-game performers, who’d defeated their main rivals Boca in the controversial final last year and semi-finals this year. Brazilian sides have traditionally underperformed in the Libertadores, with Gremio the only team to make the final in the last five years.
Mari is now the first Spaniard to win the Libertadores.
“Incredible,” he says of a game where Flamengo created more chances but trailed 1-0 until an 89th-minute equaliser and a last-gasp Gabigol winner. “We have a belief and we never give up. We showed that, coming from behind to beat the champions 2-1. Gabi scored both goals. He was the hero. He has the songs sung about him. We defenders just defend.”
The 1981 triumph is still sung about on the terraces of Maracana but now their fans have a new trophy to serenade, and there could be even more glory. Mari believes the omens are good.
It was also in 1981 that Flamengo defeated Liverpool 3-0 in the final of the Intercontinental Cup in Tokyo (a competition that merged with the Club World Cup in 2005).
Although the Club World Cup has had a lukewarm response in the past in England, it is a huge deal in South America, with vast away followings which dwarf those of the European clubs involved. Stories of fans selling their cars to fund the trip are not unusual. Despite the 15-hour plane journey to Qatar, Flamengo are expecting 10,000-15,000 fans to travel, armed with a song about beating Liverpool in 1981 and toying with the Englishmen.
The white-haired Jesus, only the second European coach to win the Libertadores after Croatian Mirko Jozic with Chilean side Colo Colo, has done so well that he’s being linked with jobs back in Europe, including the vacancy at Everton.
A year ago, Mari was playing at Rayo Majadahonda away in front of 2,812. Now, his incredible 2019 will come to an end in either a final against Liverpool or Monterrey on Saturday or a third-placed play-off,depending on their Tuesday semi against Saudi club Al Hilal (a former club of manager Jesus).
Europe has won 11 of the last 12 Club World Cups since Brazilian teams took the first three when the competition began in Rio de Janeiro in 2000. This one-sided dominance is one reason why FIFA will revamp the tournament, expanding it to 24 teams from seven, beginning in 2021, with the first tournament to be played in China.
“We’ve arrived at the key moment for the competition,” Mari says as the interview wraps up. “We know about Al Hilal, Monterrey and I know all about Liverpool. They’re playing at an extraordinary level and have not lost a single game in the Premier (League), but, if we were to play them, we have already shown that anything can happen in a football match.
“We will go all out to win. And we won’t be short of support here. And then, when it’s over I’ll go back to Almussafes in Valencia to see my family for Christmas. We have a lot to celebrate.”
