Robert Renan

Robert Renan was born on the 11 October 2003 in Brazil. Despite his ability to play with his left foot and many other skills, the defender struggled with getting accepted to the academies until he got his chance at Corinthians.

Robert was quite successful playing for the youth teams, but it was difficult for him to get a place in the first team at such young age due to the competitive side of the position he played on. That is why at the beginning of 2022 Renan was playing in the São Paulo Youth Football Cup.

Renan has been consistently called up for the youth national teams of Brazil for a year and a half. In November 2021 he participated in three friendly matches as part of the U18 team, they won 4-0 against the US and 3-2 against Colombia, but lost 2-1 to Mexico. In all these matches the defender was playing in the starting team, and he played the whole 90 minutes against Mexico and Colombia.

In 2022 Robert was invited to the Brazilian U20 team to play in a friendly tournament in the state Espírito Santo. Brazil won 5-2 against Paraguay, 4-1 against Ecuador and 7-0 against Uruguay with Renan being part of the starting team in all of the games.

This tournament played a big role in Renan’s career as he got noticed by the scouts from European clubs and earned a place in Corintians’s first team. The club’s manager Vítor Pereira has been pointing Renan’s skills out as well: “Robert is a player who is often on my mind. Why didn’t I let him play more? What am I saving him for? His qualities are the qualities of a defender from a top team. He is great both with the ball and without it. He is fast and is able to concentrate well. Renan still has to improve in the air, but I have no doubts that he has a bright future ahead.”

The statistics confirms Pereira’s words, Renan has the best percentage of stopping the opponent among Corintians’s defenders, he also takes second place for pass accuracy (87%), and for the amount of long-distance shots, Robert is a little bit behind Fabián Balbuena who is in the lead. As for the accuracy of those passes Renan is the best central defender of Corinthians in the 2022 season.

Robert said goodbye to his club: “It’s a difficult moment for me. I was building my career at this club, I was growing here and got the opportunity to make my childhood dream come true. Right away I realised that not everyone is worthy to play in the colours of Corinthians. In this short period of time I saw the greatness of the club and its fans.”

Robert continued: “It’s time for the new challenge in my life, but this connection between thousands of fans who have shown me respect and supported me in the most important moment of my career is always going to stay in my heart. Until we meet again”.

Robert Renan joined Zenit in the winter of 2023.