Marcelo Vieira da Silva Júnior was born on the 12th day of May 1988 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by parents, Mr and Mrs Marcelo Vieira da Silva. His father was a fireman and mother, a former teacher. He grew up in Catete Neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There was lot of poverty in his neighborhood during his childhood time. Even Marcelo’s parents who earned very low were very poor.
In Marcelo’s words, “My dad did show me his fire fighting shirts when I was a kid. I knew he never wanted me to have that desire to become a firefighter because they were all poor. In essence, I actually never had any desire to become a firefighter, All I wanted was to play football as a child.”
Marcelo was always known to be a normal and happy kid in his childhood time. In his words again, “Yes, from the time that I was a kid, with or without difficulties, I learned that in life you have to be happy no matter what, or at least try to be. I’ve always been like this in my life, and I try to transmit it to the locker room with each game. Happiness helps you a lot.” In a bid to find a steady source of income to help his family, young Marcelo decided to make a life of his own. He choose football.
On his arrival, club President Ramón Calderón said, “He is an important signing for us. He is a young player who will inject some freshness into the side and is part of our plan to bring younger players into the squad. We’re very happy because he’s a pearl that half of Europe wanted. Many spectators hailed him as Roberto Carlos‘ potential successor in the left-back role.
As stated earlier, Marcelo comes from a very poor family background. He was able to survive with them until the age of 8 before looking for green pastures. His parents were at very low levels of their careers (firefighting and teaching). Their struggle to help their son pay his fees despite their low wages couldn’t help. Marcelo is however still grateful.
He once recalled: “Yes, without a doubt. I owe my family a lot, since they’ve always been with me. My father, my mother was there BUT my grandfather was the one I credit the most. If I played badly, they would tell me, no, you didn’t play badly, you were the best one out there. They always lifted my spirits. ”
Marcelo dedicates every goal to his grandfather. He said for Real Madrid TV that if it wasn’t for Pedro he would have never played football for Fluminense. Unfortunately, Pedro died in July 2014, during the World Cup. It was Señor Pedro who accompanied him to almost all of his youth training sessions, and he even worked two or three jobs to earn money so that Marcelo could train.
Back then, he worked as a chauffeur for a bank in Brazil, then also worked in an office all for Marcelo.
Back then, Marcelo had to pay 13 reales a day to get trained, and that’s a lot in Brazil. It was Senior San Pedro who footed the bills. In Marcelo’s words; “One day, Don Pedro didn’t have the money for your training, and he told me, “I only have these coins.” What happened? You were in a bar, no? …. He had a one-real coin, and there were these slot machines there, where you could play for 25 centavos. And that day, we really didn’t have any more money to go to training. He had to pay for a bus ticket, but I didn’t have to, because I was just a kid. And so he put the coin in… I still remember to this day that the machine had different countries – Spain, Brazil, everything, and to win, you had to choose the country correctly. He bet the coin on Croatia, and we won 25 reales. That day, I ate everything – hamburgers… So thanks to that coin, you could go to training.”
In essence, he’s the one that believed in Marcelo the most during his childhood time. Marcelo gave all of his first salaries to his grandfather.
Marcelo is a man of long term relationships. He met his first love, Clarisse Alves while he was playing futsal at the beach during his childhood time. The result of their long term relationship was better and better quality. In 2008, Marcelo married his longtime girlfriend Clarice Alves. On the 24th of September 2009, they had their first child, a son whom they named Enzo Gattuso Alves Vieira.
Marcelo’s love for his son is evident. If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of Marcelo and his son Enzo. Their second son, the shiny Liam pictured at the fore front of the phot below was born on the 1st of September 2015.
After his breakthrough season, Marcelo was praised by football legends such as Paolo Maldini and Diego Maradona, who called him the best in his position. He is frequently compared to Roberto Carlos, who himself said Marcelo was his heir, the world’s best left back and that “Marcelo possesses a better technical ability than me”.
The Brazilian is alleged to have defrauded Spanish tax authorities of €490,917.70 (£437,539.59). The accusations from Spanish prosecutors stretch back to 2013 According to investigators, Marcelo is alleged to have used companies abroad to handle his image rights. This was revealed by the almighty Spanish tax authority. Both C Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have seen a taste of this.