Mario Fernandes was born on 19 September 1990 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Mario's father is a futsal coach, so Mario spent a lot of time practicing his skills as a child.
“Every child in Brazil is born with the dream of becoming a footballer and I wanted it all my life. The only thing is, that until the age of 16 I thought that I would be a futsal player.”
Mario began his professional career in 2009 with Gremio, playing more as a central defender, however this was not a happy time for Mario. “I lived alone, without my mother, without a girlfriend. I didn’t know how to cook and ate anything I could, chocolates, hamburgers, and fizzy drinks. The club found out about this and asked to come to the training ground in the morning so I could eat right.” Fernandes recalled. The homesickness Mario experienced there led him to go AWOL from the club almost immediately after signing the contract, and he returned only a week later. “It was wrong, but I don’t want to go into details, it wasn’t fun” said the player.
Mario switched to the right side of defence in 2011 and was found to be a natural, scoring in one of his first games in the new position. Against Flamengo he notched up two assists and helped Gremio go from 2-0 down to a 4-2 win. He quickly grabbed the attention of some of the top European scouts, and it was CSKA Moscow who won the battle for his signature in 2012, ahead of Real Madrid who were also interested in the right back.
Fernandes made his RPL debut in July 2012 and then CSKA manager Leonid Slutsky stated: “Mario gave us aggression in attack, but without leaving gaps in the defence” and this statement sums up Mario’s career in Russia well. In the 2014/15 season he had eight assists, and nine in the 2018/19 season, but Mario's connections and his excellent game at the top always brought spice to someone else's free kick.
Mario was named the best right back in the RPL eight times while at CSKA and won a league title and Russian Cup while in Moscow with the Army Men. In July 2016 he received a Russian passport, and in September 2017 made his debut for the Russian national team. “The press and the fans put a lot of pressure on the national team in Brazil, if you lose a match, you can get hit! In Russia, things are a lot calmer and it’s a nicer place to play.” Mario has had one cap for Brazil, a 4-0 friendly win over Japan in 2014, but being a friendly, this didn’t disqualify him for making the switch to Russia.
Mario became one of the stars of the 2018 World Cup, establishing himself as a starter for Russia and eventually becoming one of the best right-backs of the whole tournament and, of course, the scorer of the vital goal against Croatia in extra time.
Fernandes said that he is not the most emotional of people, but he remembers that moment clearly: “It was the most amazing month of my career. If you ask me to describe how that goal made me feel, I just can’t do it, but I remember it clearly, it was the 115th minute, Alan Dzagoev put a free kick, I leapt up and the ball just touched my head and flew into the left corner.”
Mario Fernandes currently has 33 caps for Russia and has scored five goals, one more than Sergei Semak! In September 2021, Mario retired from the international football, but remained at CSKA, however after the 2021/22 season, he decided to suspend his club career to spend more time with his family. He did join Internacional in Brazil on a short-term deal at the start of 2023.
Everyone at Zenit welcomes Mario Fernandes to St. Petersburg and wishes him lots of success in a blue-white-sky blue shirt!
