Gleison Bremer is a details man. “Add them all up and that’s how you win games,” he tells The Athletic. The Torino centre-back has emerged as one of the most promising players in his position this season, with a lot of top clubs across Europe curious, including Liverpool. But like any good defender, he gives little away. “I’m not going to tell you my secret,” Bremer laughs. He’s picked up so many since he moved to Italy though that he’s happy to share one. “Never let your man turn,” the powerfully-built and agile Brazilian recommends. Particularly if your man is Cristiano Ronaldo. “If you let your man turn, you’re dead.”
Today is the biggest game of the season for Torino. It’s the Derby della Mole against their crosstown “cousins” Juventus. The two of them are in crisis mode. After experiencing a new manager bounce under great escape artist Davide Nicola, a large COVID-19 outbreak disrupted Torino’s unbeaten run and the team has been unable to pull away from the relegation zone. “The derby’s always a big game but this feels big because of what we’re going through and our bad position in the table,” Bremer says, “It’s a chance to do our best and show what we’re about.”
Juventus could do with a morale boost as well. The pressure is on after they were knocked out of the Champions League and lost 1-0 at home to Benevento before the international break. Confidence in manager Andrea Pirlo has been dented and the Old Lady will relinquish her title this season after nine long years. “You’ve got that extra motivation,” Bremer says in reflection on derby week. “You know you’re coming up against top players and that you have to be even more focused. You don’t need to watch tape of Ronaldo because you know how good he is. We know what we’ve got to do.”
Italians love to say defenders should be pessimistic and always fear the worst is going to happen. If you don’t think a striker can get to the ball, it doesn’t matter. You have to make sure. Just try telling a Brazilian to have a negative mentality, though. “I think pessimistic is the wrong word,” Bremer counters. “You’ve just got to be careful. Even if you trust your centre-back partner, you’ve got to realise he can make mistakes, too. It’s something you always have to be aware of.”
An unknown 21-year-old when he touched down in Caselle, Bremer has come a long way in his three seasons in Serie A. It’s hard to imagine him not being in Tite’s thoughts when Brazil next get together. Bremer would love to be involved at the Tokyo Olympics. “I hope to go,” he says, “I’m playing well and have gone up a level.” The analytics community has been flagging Bremer as a player of interest for some time. Smarterscout is a site that gives players a rating of 0-99, relating to either how often they do a given stylistic action or how effective they are compared with others playing in their position. What stands out from the pizza diagram below is his defending intensity rating, which aggregates ball recoveries and interceptions. It’s almost off the charts.
These numbers are all backed up by the StatsBomb data on Fbref, which show Bremer to be in the 92nd percentile for pressures (12.1 per 90 minutes), the 91st percentile for tackles (2.3 per 90), the 98th percentile for interceptions and the 85th percentile for clearances (6.3 per 90) and blocks (2.1 per 90).
His game has come on a lot while in Turin. Bremer’s first coach in Italy was the dour Walter Mazzarri. “He was super-defensive and loved defending,” Bremer recalls. “He understood what my main qualities are — my speed and strength. He kept telling me I could become a top defender if I learned how to position my body and mark. It’s a school here. I still think Italian defenders are the best in the world. Players defend different now compared to in the past. You’ve got to be able to build up from the back but, for a defender, defending remains the most important thing. You must never lose sight of it.”
When Bremer started playing centre-half in Sao Paulo’s academy, there were four players he used to watch and take mental notes on. “I liked Lucio and Carlos Gamarra, the Italians, Alessandro Nesta and Paolo Maldini,” he says. But as a child, Bremer used to go up front instead. He grew up when Robinho burst on the scene at Santos and later got to play with him at Atletico Mineiro. Clearly, some of those attacking instincts stayed with him. The only nominal defender who has scored more goals than Bremer’s four in Serie A this season is Atalanta’s flying wing-back Robin Gosens (nine goals). According to Statsbomb, Juventus have conceded the fewest set-piece goals in the league (two), but their defence will have to pay close attention to Bremer when Torino win a corner on Saturday.
He puts his goals down to hard work at the Filadelfia, Torino’s training ground. Bremer stays back after sessions and when he’s not trying to tackle better with his weaker left foot, he likes to get one of his team-mates to swing in crosses for him to head. “You’ve got to go in hard for them,” he advises. “You need to have the conviction you’re going to smash one in. If you go in soft, you’re never going to score.” He picked that up from watching Leonardo Silva at Atletico Mineiro. The veteran centre-back made it his trademark towards the end of his career and was good for six goals a season. “I remember Leonardo was almost 40 and he was still playing at a high level,” Bremer says. “I always used to watch him. He scored some incredible headers. The ball used to come in and, bang, he scored. He was a champion. He won lots of things including the Libertadores in 2013.”
Bremer made his professional debut in a derby, the Classico Mineiro between Cruzeiro and Atletico, so high-stakes games don’t faze him. “Derbies are different in South America,” he says. “The fans row with each other. If they bump into each other while they’re out in the car, they start arguing.” Turin is a little calmer. The traffic is certainly better than in Sao Paulo. “Madonna,” Bremer exclaims. But passions in Piedmont still run high. He doesn’t hang out with Juventus’ South Americans, which is probably just as well. Argentinian Paulo Dybala, Brazilian Arthur and American Weston McKennie won’t feature in Saturday’s derby for disciplinary reasons after a get-together at the latter’s apartment broke COVID-19 regulations. Bremer is at home waiting for dinner after a hard day’s training when The Athletic calls. “They’re on the other team. We don’t know each other. I’m on this side, they’re on the other,” Bremer says.
He is acutely aware of how much this rivalry means to Torino fans. It was one of the things he knew about the club, along with Leo Junior, the Brazil international who used to play for Torino in the 1980s, and the tragedy of the Superga air disaster that wiped out arguably the finest Italian team of all time, the Grande Torino, in 1949. Every year on May 4, the players go up to the site of the crash, the Basilica on the hill overlooking Turin, to pay their respects and the captain, now Andrea Belotti, reads out the names of the fallen in a ceremony that sends shivers down the spine. “I went once,” Bremer says. “We couldn’t go last year because of the pandemic. It’s a really important day. The images that flash through your mind. When you go you see the people. Fans are crying. It’s deeply moving. Every player has their own story, their own family, their own kids. It’s not just the fans who cry. You cry, too.”
Bremer’s first game for Torino was in solidarity with another club that had gone through the same harrowing experience, a friendly with Chapecoense to raise money for the victims’ families. Honouring the memory of the Grande Torino brings added responsibility to every generation of players that dons the Granata shirt. It is keenly felt on the anniversary but it’s always there, particularly now the team is back training at the Filadelfia where the all-conquering team of the 1940s set their records and won five league titles in a row.
Head coach Nicola likes to take inspiration from history but he might not have to now Benevento have shown the vulnerable side to Juventus. “I’d like to score a goal in a derby,” Bremer says. Let’s see if he gets his wish.
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