Fabio: The 44-year-old goalkeeper who makes Messi look young at the Club World Cup

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Quiz question: who is the oldest player at the Club World Cup?

Francesco Acerbi or Lionel Messi? Both 37. Miles off, sorry. Franco Armani (38) and Luka Modric (39) are closer. Thiago Silva, still going strong at 40 for Fluminense, would be a good guess. It would still be wrong.

No, the prize goes to Fabio Deivson Lopes Maciel. When he starts in goal for Fluminense against Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday, he will be 44 years and 260 days old.

It is an incredible number. Here’s an even better one: it will be the 1,375th senior competitive appearance of his career. No, seriously. Read that sentence again, let it percolate. 1,375 games. That isn’t a CV; it’s an edifice.

Already, Fabio is second on the list of the leading appearance-makers in the history of football. He has clambered beyond Gianluigi Buffon and Rogerio Ceni, past Barry Hayles and Paul Bastock. (It must be said that it is a deeply puzzling list.) Cristiano Ronaldo has put up a good fight but remains in the rear-view, to the tune of 100-odd matches. Now, just one target remains.

Peter Shilton has been the clubhouse leader here for as long as anyone would care to remember. He references it on the biography section of his X account, speaks about it in interviews. The record is part of his identity.

It is also quite woolly. Guinness World Records says Shilton made 1,390 career appearances. Shilton believes the number is 1,387, although that may include appearances for England’s under-23 side. Take those out of the equation, and the tally might be as low as 1,374. Which, of course, would put Fabio level with him ahead of Tuesday’s match.

Fabio denies Flamengo’s Gonzalo Plata this season (Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

In the absence of a forensic analysis of Shilton’s early years, caution is probably advisable. Fluminense are playing it safe; they are working off Shilton’s own number and plan to celebrate Fabio’s feat a few weeks further down the line.

One thing is clear, however: he will get there. Fabio is 45 in September but there is no suggestion that time is running out. He is still Fluminense’s undisputed No 1, still one of the best goalkeepers in Brazil. In May, he signed a new contract that will take him through to the end of 2026.

Shilton’s record is on borrowed time. The giddy heights of the 1,400s beckon.

Fabio made his professional debut in 1997 for a team that no longer exists. He played 30 matches for Uniao Bandeirante, then 150 for Vasco da Gama, winning the Brazilian championship in 2000.

It was at Cruzeiro, though, that Fabio really settled into his groove. Between 2005 and 2021, he made 976 appearances for the Belo Horizonte club — a cool 343 more than anyone else in their history. He captained them to back-to-back league titles in 2013 and 2014. “The Blue Wall,” fans called him. Opposition strikers usually went for something a little more profane.

It was not all plain sailing. His lowest ebb came in 2007, when he carelessly turned his back on the play in the final of the Minas Gerais state championship, allowing Atletico Mineiro forward Vanderlei to shoot into an empty net. They were 3-0 down but it was a huge error, all the worse for coming against Cruzeiro’s biggest rivals. For a time, it looked like it might undermine his whole career.

“It messed me up,” he explained later. “I completely lost all sense of reason. I thought that goal was going to define me forever.”

In the wake of it, Fabio turned to God. Today, he sprinkles every interview with references to his faith. It was the same back in 2014, when he admitted that he was considering retiring at the end of his contract.

“If it’s God’s will for me to stop in 2016, I’ll be satisfied,” he said. “It won’t be a surprise to me.”

Fabio is deeply religious (Miguel Schincariol/Getty Images)

Eleven years on, he is still trucking. The kit has changed — Cruzeiro let him go at the end of 2021, much to his chagrin — but he is still the ultra-reliable goalkeeper that emerged from the wreckage of that early brain melt. Case in point: his starring role in Fluminense’s 2023 Copa Libertadores win, which stamped their passport for this trip to the U.S.

He has taken on more of a leadership role, setting the tone with his professionalism.

“He’s a genius, spectacular,” Fernando Diniz, the coach who masterminded that Libertadores success, said in 2023. “He’s a light person, positive, a leader who is liked by everyone. He deserves every bit of praise he gets.”

The secret to Fabio’s longevity? Ignoring conventional wisdom.

Resistance training? Fabio doesn’t do weights. Massages? Fabio doesn’t like those. Prioritising rest above all else? Err…

“I normally sleep for about three hours a night,” Fabio told Globo last year. “It’s not much, but it’s enough for me to recover.”

Anyone looking to emulate him would do better to focus on his mentality. Once upon a time, Fabio would vent about not getting a chance with the Brazil national team — not an unreasonable complaint, but one that he seemed unable to let go. Today, though? He seems entirely at peace with his lot, an elder statesman enjoying his career’s extended outro.

“Whole generations of players who I used to play with have stopped,” he said on Fluminense TV in March. “I could never have imagined this career when I was growing up. Only God could have made this possible.”

And Shilton’s milestone? “I’m thankful for all the praise,” Fabio said. “But I never thought about records, and it’s still the same today. I just want to enjoy this to the maximum.”

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(Top photo: Wagner Meier/Getty Images)

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