‘Called up’, masseurs of the selection accompany joys and sorrows in the Cup

The year was 2000 and goalkeeper Marcos suffered a broken wrist. He didn’t even take off his Palmeiras uniform and went to the hospital. He forgot to get a medical referral. The security guard did not recognize him (or he was from Corinthians) and said he would have to wait in line, like everyone else.

That’s what the player did. He waited and waited and waited until he was called by a nurse who saw the future world champion being there. Alongside Marcos the entire time was Sergio Luis de Oliveira, 57. The masseuse for Palmeiras and for the Brazilian national team is amused by the episode.

“You can ask Marcão about it… We have every story!”, he recalls.

In Brazil, which is going to Qatar for the World Cup, Serginho is the one who gives assistance to the players on the field in case of need during the matches. Marcelo Clemines de Araújo, 42, takes care of everything behind the scenes, as well as getting his hands dirty to massage or take care of the athletes’ hydration.

A CBF employee, he plans the equipment that will be needed for all teams, not just the main one. Months before the tournament is already thinking about it. In the case of the World Cup, it’s years.

“We project that the athletes will use 100 bottles of isotonic and 300 bottles of water a day. The volume of material is large. 82 trunks with 32 kilos each will be taken”, he explains.

Massage therapists may appear little, but they see everything. They know the players, enjoy their intimacy in the concentrations, are the targets of jokes and dear members of the delegation.

This makes them come out in defense of the ballers. If they hear a friend or family member say something that is not true, if they hear any nonsense, they come to the defense of their protégés. Serginho, for example, doesn’t even accept to hear about Neymar’s “cai-cai” fame. He accompanies the number 10 of the selection in all calls. He says he knows he’s not like that.

He remembers an episode after Brazil qualified for the final of Rio-2016. Neymar asked him, at night, to bring ice to his room and start treatment immediately after suffering a sprained ankle.

“If I hear something bad about any athlete I know, I don’t allow it. I’m really defensive”, he adds.

The duo’s importance and anonymity made them star in Gatorade’s marketing campaign. In it, they are not called masseurs, but “hydrators” for carrying the bottles of the CBF sponsors for the players.

Serginho goes to his second World Cup. He was present at Russia-2018. It will be the debut of Marcelo, who accompanied the team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2019 and 2021 Copa America.

They are part of the selection. When they tell the story of how they got to CBF, they don’t use words like “hiring” or “beginning”. They speak of “summoning”. Marcelo’s father cried when he learned that his son was in the Brazil squad.

“He said it was like the birth of another child. He’s a football fanatic, he lives it 24 hours a day”, he says.

Marcelo tried to be a player. He was a winger in the base categories of Elosport, a team from Capão Bonito, his hometown in the interior of São Paulo. It didn’t work. He started to work in the administrative department of the club until he was called to the coaching staff.

Serginho, born in Dracena, also in the interior of São Paulo, never wanted to wear soccer shoes. He was taking a nursing assistant course when he saw an advertisement to learn how to be a masseuse. He decided to sign up.

Both have in common work in locksmiths in the past and shooting for different clubs. Serginho passed through volleyball and futsal teams before arriving at Palmeiras. He’s been in the national team since his first call-up after the 2014 World Cup. Luiz Felipe Scolari had promised to take him to the World Cup in Brazil, but he didn’t. The memory that this prevented him from being part of the 7-1 rout against Germany makes the masseuse laugh.

Mercelo was “called up” in 2018 to the under-20 selection. At the end of the same year, he made it to the main. Before that, he went through a long list of teams in the second or third division of São Paulo.

They know more about the players than the coach or any other member of the coaching staff. They listen to what they have to say when they are lying on the massage table. They have already witnessed outbursts, complaints and created relationships of trust. They also know their bodies and know where they can massage the hardest and who is most sensitive to pain.

“When [o convocado] it’s new, looking at the musculature, you can know who can tighten up or not”, says Marcelo.

“It happens that the leg is massaged, the athlete complains of pain and I see that he has a bruise that I hadn’t even noticed”, adds Serginho.

What matters to both is that the trip to Qatar arrives soon. Because when asked about the tournament, they, as if they were players, talk about “bringing the hexa”.