Felipe Neves, Bruno Guimaraes and the Newcastle United captain's dad, Dick Gomez
Felipe Neves, Bruno Guimaraes and the Newcastle United captain's dad, Dick Gomez
Each achievement is a source of immense pride for Bruno Guimaraes. On the back of the Newcastle United captain's left leg are tattoos of the Copa Sudamericana that the midfielder lifted with Athletico Paranaense in 2018 and the Olympic gold medal the midfielder went on to win with his country.
However, there is still room for one or two more and you suspect the Carabao Cup will take pride of place if Newcastle end a 70-year wait to win a major domestic trophy on Sunday. Just ask Bruno's performance manager Felipe Neves.
"It's not only the club," he told ChronicleLive ahead of the Carabao Cup final against Liverpool. "The city means a lot to him, too. The whole community have embraced him and his family so well.
"I have been travelling with his father [Dick] to away matches and I've been working in football for 10 years and I've never seen what I've seen when I go out with him. People are so warm and the whole family feel a part of the community. Bruno understands how much lifting a trophy here would mean to the fans and the whole history of the club."
Bruno's tears following Newcastle's defeat at Wembley a couple of years ago told you as much. This is a player who has repeatedly spoken about his desire to win silverware in order to truly leave his name in the club's history since the moment he arrived on Tyneside. To do so as captain of the side? That is something Bruno has dreamed of.
Bruno has only been skipper a matter of months, but Eddie Howe's bold decision to hand the midfielder the armband certainly did not come as a surprise to former Athletico Paranaense boss Tiago Nunes because this 'natural winner' has always been 'obsessed with growth and personal improvement'.
"Bruno has always stood out for being a person, a player, who makes history wherever he goes," he told ChronicleLive. "Not only for his footballing ability but for this relentless hunger to leave a mark, to win, to leave his name in the history of the places he passes through.
"So I believe being a captain now adds a lot so that he can be increasingly motivated and with this desire to not only keep his flame burning, but also influence all his team-mates and truly be a standard bearer for the club. I am sure that this will be an important step in Bruno’s history but, also, Newcastle’s own history."
Bruno Guimaraes working with performance manager Felipe Neves
Bruno has seen himself as an 'extension' of the coaching staff, a figure who can relay Howe's instructions, whether it is a change of shape or a different pressing approach, and the midfielder has embraced the role after the Newcastle boss recognised he had 'given everything for the club'. The numbers back those words up.
This is about an ever-present who has not missed a game for Newcastle through injury in more than two years. Bruno covered the most distance of any player in the Premier League last season, a staggering 423.09km, which was the equivalent of 10 marathons, while no one in Europe's top five leagues has won more ground duels or more fouls this season
That does not happen by accident, of course. Neves, who can work with Bruno up to six days a week, mainly on injury prevention, described the 27-year-old as 'one of the most dedicated professionals' he has encountered, who even has a hyperbaric chamber in his own home to aid recovery.
"He sacrifices a lot of his personal time to do what needs to be done," he explained. "There have been many times where I've arrived at his house and he's with his son [Matteo] and his son says, 'Stay with me and play!' but Bruno says, 'No, I need to work'. It's a quality that not many people have."
Bruno has not had to look too far for inspiration, of course. The Newcastle captain has leant on others and empowered Newcastle's leadership group rather than going it alone. It was striking, for instance, that when Kieran Trippier went to give the armband back to Bruno, who had come off, following the semi-final win against Arsenal, the Brazilian waved him away.
Just like Trippier and Dan Burn, who remain crucial figures in the dressing room, Bruno is not afraid to speak up when required. It was the Newcastle skipper who reminded his team-mates that they are at their best when they 'work hard' after slamming the 'shambles' against Man City last month. Similarly, following the 'mess' of a defeat at Brentford, back in December, Bruno wrote about the 'need' to 'put friendships aside' in his programme notes.
Bruno Guimaraes celebrates Athletico Paranense's Brazilian Cup win
Those words brought back memories for Nunes, who witnessed Bruno standing up and addressing his more experienced team-mates at half-time of the Brazilian Cup final in 2019. That was a night when Bruno told those around him in the dressing room to 'give him the ball' if they were 'afraid to play' because he wanted to be a 'champion'.
"The great differentiator for Bruno has always been his competitive capacity, his dissatisfaction with the status quo and the desire to go out, to win, to conquer regardless of where he was, the level he was at, not making any kind of excuses or letting any kind of difficulty stand in his way," Nunes added.
"He has always been a winner by nature not only due to his professional trajectory but also because he has always been a very positive athlete and person who always saw his future mapped out and did not believe at any moment in those who tried to block him. The speech during the Brazilian Cup actually represents a bit of that: this hunger, this desire to compete, to win, to take on responsibilities in moments of great pressure. So it is really something that characterises great leaders."
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