Marcos Tavares

Early career

Tavares has maintained that he was unable to manage the conflict between professional and personal life during his teenage years, and that his excessive partying, drinking and overall lack of discipline contributed to his failure to succeed in Brazil. At the age of 19 he went to Malaysia in desire for quick implementation. In the 2004 season, he played for Kedah in the Malaysian Super League, where he scored eleven league goals. When the season ended, Tavares returned to Brazil, where he signed a two-year contract with Atlético Paranaense in February 2005. However, he featured in only two games, both in Campeonato Paranaense, before being released by the club in May 2005. After that, he once again continued his career in Kedah, where he was the team's top goalscorer in the 2005–06 Malaysia Premier League with twelve goals. After one season with Kedah, he was noticed by Roberto de Assis Moreira, who took him to Porto Alegre. In 2007, Tavares moved to Europe as he signed for Cypriot side APOEL. He scored four goals in the Cypriot Cup, but in the Cypriot League he played only five matches without scoring any goals. Because he didn't perform as the club expected, Tavares was released from APOEL in January 2008.

Maribor

While playing for APOEL, Tavares met Nilton Fernandes, who introduced him to Zlatko Zahovič, the director of football at the Slovenian team Maribor. Tavares joined the team at their winter training camp in Croatia, and debuted in a…

Tavares was born in Porto Alegre and spent his childhood in the city's slums with his father, a worker at Internacional, and his mother, a teacher. He is the youngest of three children and throughout his youth the family was living in poverty, sharing a one bedroom home where all five family members were sleeping in the same room and on the floor. Tavares claims he started playing football to help his family, and after spending a few years at Internacional youth selections, he was noticed by their city rivals Grêmio at the age of 13 and accepted their financial offer to switch clubs as he wanted to provide the financial means for his father to build a bigger home. However, Internacional and Grêmio are fierce city rivals who contest the Grenal derby and his father soon enough found himself unemployed.

Tavares met his wife Leticia at the age of 17. The pair has four children together. He is multilingual, speaking three languages; Portuguese, Slovene and English. In Maribor, he and his wife founded a humanitarian and religious society Kairos which is responsible for helping the people in need. He is also a minister. Tavares gained Slovenian citizenship on 16 September 2013 after residing in the country for more than five years.

Kedah

Malaysia Premier League: 2005–06 Maribor

Slovenian PrvaLiga: 2008–09, 2010–11, 2011–12, 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2016–17, 2018–19, 2021–22 Slovenian Cup: 2009–10, 2011–12, 2012–13, 2015–16 Slovenian Supercup: 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014 Brazil U17

South American U-17 Championship: 2001 Individual

Slovenian PrvaLiga top scorer: 2010–11, 2012–13, 2014–15 Slovenian PrvaLiga Player of the Year: 2008–09, 2010–11 Slovenian PrvaLiga best XI: 2008–09, 2010–11, 2012–13, 2014–15, 2017–18 Maribor Player of the Year: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017