Andre Trindade - The Modern-Day Defensive Midfielder

Remember Felipe Melo? The robust defensive midfielder who was pretty much a walking yellow/red card and was your creative midfielder’s worst nightmare because of a potentially career-ending crunch tackle? Yes, that Felipe Melo, cut from the same cloth as Nigel de Jong, Mark van Bommel, and others, who’s currently plying his trade at Fluminense at age 39 at the end of his long career.

What if I told you that he was idolized by a certain young midfielder who broke through in the senior Flu squad in 2020 and has since been the next young Brazilian to be close to a move to “European pastures?" However, despite holding him very high up in his list of players to look up to, Andre Trindade da Costa Neto, better known as just Andre, looks nothing like Melo and is the modern-day defensive midfielder that almost any club in world football would want and this is his story and profile breakdown. 

Andre wasn’t born in Rio, though, instead, he was brought up in Algodao, a district in Ibirataia, in the state of Bahia, Salvador. His footballing career began at the Futuro Certo school and at the age of 10, he already had the chance to participate in a tryout for Bahia Esporte Clube, one of the slightly bigger teams in Brazil. The tryouts were in the neighboring city and he quickly impressed, earning a move to be further evaluated in the state’s capital of Salvador.

Luckily for Andre, he had relatives there so the trip was easier and reaching the youth team’s training grounds didn’t pose much of a problem as it typically would for other kids in Brazil. That being said, the player showed flashes of his talent and was immediately enrolled, staying at the club for two years.