Tamires on joining Corinthians in 2019 and her role in women’s football | OneFootball

Corinthians left-back Tamires gave an exclusive interview to Rádio Coringão and recalled the reaction among women’s football fans when she announced that she would be joining the club from Parque São Jorge during an appearance on journalist Fátima Bernardes’ show on Rede Globo in 2019. In her remarks, she also made sure to praise the Corinthians supporters.

“Look, Corinthians’ fans are different, because of how much affection they show us, how they go to the matches, how much they supported and believed in the project from the very beginning. And since 2019, when I arrived, it was already a somewhat different kind of announcement, because I ended up going on Fátima Bernardes’ show, when she still had her program, right after the 2019 World Cup, which was also a huge ‘boom’ for women’s football in Brazil, a major turning point. And when I announced on Fátima Bernardes that I was going to Corinthians, the engagement was really great.”

Photo: Rodrigo Gazzanel/Corinthians Agency

She pointed out that, from that moment on, people started wanting to know more about her life story, and she earned the nickname ‘Mother of the Fiel’. When she was younger, she had to stop playing football because of her pregnancy: “People started learning more about me, started finding out that I was a mother too, and then ‘Mother of the Fiel’ caught on, and all of this building process with Corinthians’ women’s football department, always wanting to break records, wanting to make history after history.”

“And that really marked my journey here. I think that’s also one of the reasons why the fans are so affectionate toward me, because of the commitment on the pitch that everyone sees, how dedicated I am to the club, and off it too, always speaking very highly of Corinthians. Because we are treated extremely well here, so I think it’s a whole set of things that makes Corinthians such a powerhouse in women’s football as well,” she continued.

In nearly seven years at Corinthians, she has scored 37 goals and provided 55 assists in 225 matches (187 as a starter), with 173 wins, 34 draws, and 18 losses – an 81.39% success rate. In addition, she has won 17 titles, including the Brazilian Championship, Paulistão, Libertadores, Supercopa, and Copa Paulista. Later, the experienced player spoke about her representativeness in the sport and how that status helped women gain more and more space in women’s football.

“For sure, I think you put it really well about how I started playing football. We had nothing, and today seeing this progress happen, we really do have to value our work here, so I honor the Corinthians shirt with total fire in my eyes all the time, but I also know how to value how other athletes are working too so that they can also have a good working structure, can get there and fulfill their dreams. So, this goes way back, we’ve always had to fight very hard to achieve our goals and earn appreciation and recognition, and now that we have these people, these women, working collectively for the growth of women’s football, that is very important.”

“So I never stop highlighting that because of a match result. I think everyone works hard, I’m going to honor my shirt, everyone is going to honor theirs. Off the pitch, we are women trying to seek the best for everyone, for all the girls coming up, inspiring generations, and I think that’s also a big part of what I believe in. I want to leave a legacy in women’s football, I want people to look back, the girls who are coming up to look back and say, wow, we managed to achieve all this because the players stood together, so we have to stay united. I think that’s very important because we are still in the process of evolving,” she added.

She was then asked how she sees the competitiveness of women’s football over the coming years. In recent seasons, besides Corinthians, a reference point in the sport’s department, teams like São Paulo, Palmeiras, and Cruzeiro have been investing more and more in the sector in hopes of competing with Timão for the biggest titles.

“I do believe that the trend now is for things to be much more balanced and much more competitive. But I think it’s important sometimes for people who don’t know much about the history of women’s football and how it developed to understand that it has always been driven by clubs that spent many years winning championships. For example, there was São José — I don’t know if you followed the São José era — Botucatu, then Centro Olímpico, and then Corinthians. These clubs really led the way, and Corinthians, by being champions for years, made other clubs look at that and say they also needed to invest, that they also needed to structure our teams. Athletes playing outside Brazil also wanted to come back to Brazil because they were seeing that the competitions were becoming more competitive.”

Soon after, she expanded on that thought by comparing the work of Arthur Elias, Lucas Piccinato, and Emily Lima in charge of the Brabas. The first led the black-and-white club between 2016 and 2023, when he left to take over the Brazilian Women’s National Team. At the start of 2024, Piccinato arrived to replace him and stayed in the role until February of this year, when he was dismissed and Emily came in days later.

“Arthur’s staff played a fundamental role in this whole construction, because he also came from way back, grinding through the hard times so that everything could happen the way it does today, and he handed over a very well-structured Corinthians side to Lucas. If you look at Lucas’ numbers, they are positive numbers — it’s just that maybe the fans got used to Corinthians winning every competition, so in the end each coach and each coaching staff has their own way of working.”

“Today we have Emily, and she has her own way of working too. I, as Tamires, as a person, have never liked comparing people’s work; I’ve always believed in the staff that was there working with me. And I’ve been through many coaching staffs throughout my career. So, what I understand as an athlete and as a professional is that we have to trust the work being proposed and carry it out if we believe in it, if we commit ourselves to making things happen. I think that’s the most important thing, but the fan is there to support, to celebrate, to criticize, to do what they feel comfortable doing, and we as professionals have to be here ready to work.”

Finally, she answered how long she intends to keep playing football and emphasized her relationship with Emily Lima, under whom she has been constantly praised for the numbers shown by the GPS, which measures distance covered per match, among other physical aspects.

“Look, I intend to keep going for about two more years, maybe more, but we’ll see how it goes. I believe I won’t stop before that, but I’m also already thinking about post-career, which I think is important. Even athletes who are still active need to think about life after their careers too, to prepare themselves, to study, to take advantage of opportunities, because an athlete’s life really goes by very fast, and when we realize it, the opportunity will already have passed. I was really happy that Emily praised me, because we work very hard here for that to happen at 38 years old. It’s not easy to maintain good physical condition, especially as a full-back, which is even harder. And there was also my injury, which was a syndesmosis injury, and that is a very serious injury.”

She continued: “So it’s not easy to get back to top performance like that overnight, and maybe when we think about an injury, we think: ‘oh, it’s four months, by the fifth month the athlete will already be flying,’ and mine was six months, but it ended up taking a little longer, and to fully recover it takes time in physiological terms and everything else. Thank God, today I’m managing to recover my numbers, to get back to being the Tamires I was before, and Emily has given me that confidence; that has been very positive for me, just as she gives confidence to all the athletes as well. It’s about keeping going, because I want to finish here, right, leaving Corinthians in a good place, leaving Corinthians with titles, and for that to also be something good, something positive for me after my career in that sense,” she concluded.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.