Liverpool midfielder Fabinho recently shared the story behind his name, which was given to him by a former coach during his time at Fluminense in Brazil. Fábio Henrique Tavares, also known as Fabinho, follows the tradition of many Brazilian and South American players who play under a nickname.
Despite joining Liverpool in 2018 from Monaco, Fabinho's name has stuck with him since his early days breaking into Fluminense's senior squad.
Fabinho opened up about the story behind his nickname in an interview with The Players' Tribune. He reminisced about the first and only time he was chosen to play for Fluminense's first team and shared the details: "By the way — I have Fluminense to thank for my name."
"In the Under 20s there were two Fabios. Me and Fabio Braga. So one day our coach, Marcelo Veiga, says, 'Every time I call Fabio, you both look round, so from now on you are Fabinho!' And that was it. From that moment on, I became Fabinho!"
"When I saw that first shirt with my name and number printed on it, I was like – woah, this is crazy. To me, it didn’t matter if I got on the pitch or not. At that moment, I was a professional footballer. No one could take it away from me."
"In the end, I stayed on the bench for the entire game, but if you watch the highlights back on YouTube, the camera pans across the bench and catches me celebrating our goal — that’s my whole Fluminense first-team career right there in that one second haha!"
