Info
Marcus Wendel Valle da Silva started his career pretty late, when he was a 17yo, he had a trial in Benfica, but was rejected, and started to play in Tigres do Brasil youth team, a club that is based in Xerém, Rio de Janeiro, where coincidentally Fluminense built the Centro de Treinamento Vale das Laranjeiras, the home of the Moleques de Xerém, our youth club nickname. He didn't went under the radar to the Rio club scouts, who suggested his hiring to our youth director at the time, Fernando Simone, who hired the kid from Tigres do Brasil in 2015. Since coming to Fluminense, he won the 2015 U20 National Championship, where he was a backup, and rose to the starting line up on the youth team in 2016, following Douglas Augusto promotion to the first team. He started to make a name for himself on the youth team, especially because of his partnership with Guilherme, now loaned out to Boavista RJ, dubbed as "Xerém's Kanté and Matuidi" during this years Copa São Paulo, the historical U20 Championship in Brazil. After the tournament, Wendel went to Rio to practice with the first team, and our manager, Abel Braga, was baffled with what he saw from a 19 years old kid playing against professionals, and turned to his assistants and said "Warn Marcelo Teixeira and Marcelo Veiga, Wendel won't be coming back to Xerém, he's part of the first team now.". After playing a string of games with the backup team on the state championship, Wendel started to come into the spotlight after coming in the second half of the derby against Botafogo and changing the whole midfield dynamic, being one of the catalysts of Fluminense's comeback after being 2-0 down. After that game, Douglas, the usual starter and U20 international, discovered a serious condition that kept him sidelined for most of the year, and Wendel grabbed that chance with both his hands, he rose to being the star of team while Scarpa was out, being the main man on the midfield alongside Sornoza, and winning the Campeonato Carioca Best Young Player award after the competition.
Playing Style
Wendel is a direct box to box midfielder with visible strengths and weaknesses. His strongest point is his capacity of taking players on transition, if you give him the slightest glim of space, he's going to attack it without hesitation and bring risk to the defense. His motor is something else, like a younger Matuidi, he's everywhere on the pitch tackling and attacking, covering a lot of ground and being an option to our passers when they are on tight situations, and, having scored two wondergoals already, having a pretty great long shot on him, making defenses respect Fluminense's capacity of taking a long range shot and opening spaces on the backfield.
But, while he has a lot of praise to his side, he's not criticized by the weakest part of his game: HE CAN'T PICK A PASS TO SAVE HIS LIFE. You know how I wrote that Arthur can open defenses up with his passing only? Wendel is the complete oposite of this, he won't be the one making difficult passes around the pitch, he is going to be the one who brings the ball forward and who takes the ball back of the oposing midfielder, but he needs a creative player besides him to operate on his highest.
