Marcus Tulio Tanaka

Marcus Tulio Tanaka was never a comfortable defender to watch, and that is exactly why I remember him. Born in Palmeira d'Oeste in Sao Paulo state in 1981, he moved to Japan as a teenager, went to high school in Chiba, took Japanese nationality, and ended up as a centre-back for the national team. At 184 cm he was built to stay home and defend. He refused to. In the closing minutes of a tight match he would simply abandon his post and go hunting for a goal himself, and I spent a lot of those minutes shouting at the television. But some of those games were won precisely because he did it. He played on conviction rather than on the tactical instructions, and that is a quality modern, heavily coached football has largely engineered out of the game. Whatever you thought of his decisions, the Japanese back line had a personality when he was in it. I miss that more than I expected to.

Name (English)

Marcus Tulio Tanaka

Name (Japanese)

田中マルクス闘莉王

Reading

田中まるくす闘莉王

Born

April 24, 1981 (age 45)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Taurus / Rooster

Origin

Palmeira d'Oeste, São Paulo, Brazil

Height

184 cm

Occupation

association football player

High school

Makuhari High School

• Official sitehttp://nagoya-grampus.jp/clubteam/players/tulio.html
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus%20Tulio%20Tanaka
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%94%B0%E4%B8%AD%E3%83%9E%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9%E9%97%98%E8%8E%89%E7%8E%8B
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q310598

Tags

• São Paulo
• association football player

Last updated

2026-08-07

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.