Brazilian defender Matheus Doria was interviewed by EFE this week, recalling the most important moments of his career.
The 26-year-old left his home country when Olympique Marseille bought him from Botafogo on a €5m move in 2014. That seemed like a big step at the time, but things didn’t go anywhere near as well as he expected.
When arriving in France, he found out that manager Marcelo Bielsa never asked for his signing. That’s why the Leeds United boss is still mentioned in his interviews to this day.
“I arrived on the last day of the transfer window. Bielsa didn’t count on me and got angry with the president because they signed me without consulting him. I was left in the middle of a war between them. So Bielsa wouldn’t put me on to prove that he didn’t need me,” Doria told EFE (via Soy Futbol).
Despite getting a few chances after Bielsa left Marseille, Doria never managed to settle in at the French side, and had loan spells at São Paulo, Granada and Malatyaspor.
He left them permanently when moving to Mexican club Santos Laguna in 2018.
Perhaps there’s still the feeling that the Leeds United boss has some resentment for stalling his career a bit, even though Doria now appears to be fine with what happened at that time.
