Marcelo Martins Moreno

Marcelo Martins Moreno is a professional football player from Bolivia who plays as striker. Marcelo has a unique situation when it comes to his name. When playing for the national team, he is known as Marcelo Martins, but when Marcelo turns out for his clubs, he is known as Marcelo Moreno. In 2003, Marcelo was part of the Oriente Petrolero youth academy where he was first seen as a major talent.

After two seasons there, Marcelo moved to Esporte Clube Vitoria in Brazil, signing with their youth academy in 2004. Through 2004 and 2005, Marcelo continued playing the quality of football that made him famous at Petrolero, and became a sure-shot bet for becoming a part of the first team at Vitoria. Sure enough, in 2005, the 18-year old Marcelo made his professional debut for the club’s senior team.

Marcelo faced a stop-start time during his days at Vitoria. He played 30 games, mostly coming on as a substitute, until 2006, when he became a regular first team player in the Serie C. He scored 12 goals in 30 games, spending reducing the amount of time he played in the other state league and cup competitions.

In 2007, Marcelo moved to Cruzeiro and became the joint-top scorer in the Copa Libertadores with 8 goals. The following year, he would score 7 times in 14 league games to earn a move to Europe. Shakhtar Donetsk came looking for Marcelo’s signature and the young striker moved to Europe to play for the Ukrainian side. Between 2008 and 2012, Marcelo played 38 games for the club, scoring 8 goals and failing to make his mark on the side.

He even spent 2009 on loan to Werder Bremen but only played 5 games all season. In 2010, Marcelo moved to England on loan, signing up with Wigan Athletic but 12 games was all he got throughout the season before returning to Donetsk. In 2008-09, Marcelo was part of the Donetsk side that won the UEFA Cup as well as the 2010-11 Ukrainian League title.

He returned to Brazil and signed with Gremio, becoming their first choice striker with 10 goals in 22 games so far.

At the international level, Marcelo made his debut for the Bolivian national team in 2007. Since then, he’s become a regular for the team, playing over 31 times and scoring 10 goals.