Nascimento: Sundowns will make life difficult for Fluminense

• Nascimiento spent nearly six years with Mamelodi Sundowns
• He expects the South African club to trouble Fluminense
• The Brazilian also praised the performance of his home country’s clubs

Ricardo Nascimento – wearing an old Mamelodi Sundowns FC shirt – had a warning for his former club’s next opponents: Fluminense FC will not be in for an easy match as the South Africans fight to keep their FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ campaign alive.

And nobody knows the Sundowns like the former Brazilian centre-back, who spent five and a half seasons at the club accumulating almost 150 appearances.

Nascimento enjoyed the best years of his career in Pretoria, where he played from 2016-22. In his time at the club, they won a domestic league title and a CAF Champions League.

“I’m only doing this interview for Mamelodi”, the recently retired defender, aged 38, joked in a recent chat with FIFA.

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The Club World Cup has provided Nascimento with the chance to get behind ‘The Brazilians’ as a supporter, but we are not talking about his compatriots.

Mamelodi Sundowns have earned the nickname as a result of their kit, which mirrors the iconic yellow and blue of the Seleção, as well as being renowned for a similar style of attacking football.

“They play a joyful style of football”, says the former centre-back.

Sundowns play their final game of Group F this Wednesday when they face Fluminense in Miami. Nascimento admitted that the Tricolor will be favourites heading into the match, but he emphasised that his former side will be treating it like a final.

“It will be a tough match because it’s going to decide who goes through to the next round,” said Nascimiento. “The Club World Cup is showing us that there is not that much between the teams. I’ll be very surprised if Fluminense end up winning comfortably.” 

And the ex-defender has one or two ideas on how the South African side can cause an upset and beat the group leaders to secure their place in the last 16.

“The first thing to note is that they’re a very technical team, they like to have the ball,” he said. “They almost always have more possession than their opponents. They are solid in defence, but the centre of midfield is where they’re really strong, with [the Chilean Marcelo] Allende and [the Brazilian] Lucas Ribeiro.”

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Nascimento began his career at Rio Branco in São Paulo before a brief spell at Palmeiras. He later went on to experience European football with spells in Portugal – playing for the likes of Penafiel, Portimonense and Academica – and Romania, before getting the call from South Africa.

“The idea came from a former coach of mine,” said Nascimiento. “I didn’t want to go at first, but I thought I should do it because they were in the final of the [CAF] Champions League. It was the best decision I ever made.”

After spending five-and-a-half years at Sundowns, Nascimento extended his stay in South African football by signing for Royal AM, where he played from February 2022 – July 2023. 

He returned to Brazil in 2024 for one last spell at Rio Branco, helping the club win promotion to the third division of the São Paulo State Championship. Feeling that his work was done, he decided to hang up his boots.

“I started [my career] at Rio Branco and that’s where it ended," he said. "That’s what I wanted.”