Mari Steinbrecher
On Coach Ze Roberto Guimaraes:
“I was a victim of injustice. I don’t have any relationship with him (Zé Roberto) anymore and I don’t intend to have one. I’m not thinking about National Team. I feel my job is done for what I did already. If I come back to the National Team, it will be because I want and I like it and not because I have to.”
Mari also shares that Coach Ze cut her from the Olympic squad because he could not feel her drive and the energy to train and compete with the team anymore. Mari claims that up to this day she still doesn’t understand Ze’s reasons.
“I think is easy for him to speak certain things, that my energy was not good, that he advised me. Now, stays in his consciousness. I passed by three Olympic cycles up to the end of the last (2012) one and be cut off. Zé didnt care for what was added to National Team. He acted really bad.
Zé Roberto keeps his life and I keep mine. He doesn’t need me and I don’t need him. Each of us have to take our own road. When I left the team, all players cried and came to talk to me. They said that in the week that the cuts were made the environment in Saquarema was not good.”
On her Future with Brazil
“Probably with him there, not even him or I want that I want it (to come back to NT). But I don’t know, everything in life can change.” according to the 2008 Olympic Champion.
The Nasty Rumors
People close to Mari and the National Team say that Mari FAILED to maintain healthy relationships with her teammates. There was even an incident wherein she left the Training Center in Saquarema where the team was preparing for 2012 the Olympics because of the hostile environment between her and the other athletes. Sources claim that Mari’s attitude was the main factor resulting to a hostile environment within the group.
One person mainly involved in the drama is her reported feud with longtime teammate Sheilla Castro. “I have a great relationship with Sheilla and her family. Before London, I went to Belo Horizonte & visited her family. I spent the hole day with her grandmother. We are friends and talk to each other. I talked a lot to Sheilla before and during the Olympic Games.”
Another rumor was the friction between Mari and her teammates against Coach Roberto caused by stress of playing for so many years together.
“My cut disturbed a lot in the group. I know this cause I speak with the players. The girls got closer and got united to win the title. But the relationship between Zé and the girls was worn out. If the girls did not regroup in London, the gold medal would not have happened. They really and truly deserve the gold medal!”
Goodbye Brazil! Hello Germany?
“I have an option to play for Germany National Team If I want to because I have a German passport. It’s an option I have. If I want to play for another World Championship, another Olympic Games, I can do it in Germany. I’m a good friend of Germany’s coach Giovanni Guidetti. It came to him that I have the possibility to get the German passport. I have all the documentation already to do it. When he knew about that, he came to talk to me about it.”
We don’t even know where to start but all we can say is Mari has the right to speak about her feelings and to defend some rumors about her after she got cut by coach Ze to play in London. It must’ve been the worst feeling in the world! We can’t imagine the pain she dealt with and the aftermath.
Mari is currently in Turkey playing for Fenerbahce with teammate Paula and Korea’s Kim Yeon Koung.
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