- The player with the most appearances in CONMEBOL Libertadores history saved two penalties in the shootout against Independiente Rivadavia to send Fluminense into the quarterfinals.
- Owner of every longevity record in the tournament, the Brazilian keeps his place on merit: he remains a starter and a decisive figure in the race for La Gloria Eterna.
Fábio has more than enough credentials to think about enjoying the fruits of all he has sown: he is the player with the most matches in CONMEBOL Libertadores history, the oldest ever to play in the tournament and, since August 2025, the footballer with the most appearances in the history of the game, ahead of Peter Shilton. But the Fluminense goalkeeper, at 45, refuses to become a legend of the past. And every time the Copa puts him to the test, he responds with fresh evidence that his place in goal is no tribute: it is pure merit.
The latest test came on the most demanding night of the season. With Fluminense down to ten men from 12 minutes into the second half and the tie against Independiente Rivadavia pushed to penalties by Arce's stoppage-time equalizer, qualification for the quarterfinals rested in the hands of the most veteran of them all. Fábio saved the third kick from Florentín, stretched out again in sudden death to deny Rodrigo Atencio, and sealed the 5-4 win that kept the Rio side's dream alive. It was no picturesque footnote: in a dressing room shaken by a coaching change, with Marcão in charge as interim boss for barely a week, the goalkeeper was the non-negotiable point of stability and the key player on the pitch at the exact moment the tie was being decided.
That the scene played out in Mendoza, against 'La Lepra', carries an added wink from fate: it was against the same opponent and in the same province where, on May 6, in the Group Stage, he reached 114 appearances in the Copa and broke the historic record Ever Hugo Almeida had set with 113 matches guarding Olimpia's goal. Since then, every match he plays stretches a mark that is already his own. But therein lies what sets him apart: the record grows neither by whim nor by accumulation, but because nobody has taken his place in goal. Fluminense do not pick him to pad a statistic; they pick him because he saves. He knows how.
The list of records commands respect on its own. On April 7 this year he became the oldest player ever to appear in a CONMEBOL Libertadores match, at 45 years and 189 days, a mark that breaks itself with every new outing. In August 2025 he had already reached a summit that goes beyond the Copa: he overtook England's Peter Shilton as the footballer with the most matches played in history. And since May he also holds the continental throne for appearances. Three records live in the same goalkeeper, and two of them grow again every time the referee blows the whistle to start a Fluminense match.
Behind that staying power lies a quarter of a century at the elite level. Fábio made his Copa debut on April 21, 2001, aged 20 and wearing the Vasco da Gama shirt, in a 3-2 win over Deportivo Táchira at São Januário that featured a Romário brace. Then came the long years at Cruzeiro, the 2009 final included, and since 2022 the Fluminense chapter that took him to the summit with La Gloria Eterna in 2023, already past 40. In all, 13 editions of the tournament spread across 25 years — two with Vasco, eight with Cruzeiro and, counting this year's, four in the Tricolor shirt — a span that covers several generations of opponents: some of those he faced on Tuesday night in Mendoza had not been born when he was already keeping goal in the Copa.
That is why the conversation about Fábio is no longer about how much longer he can go on, but about how much he has left to win. Fluminense await the winner of the tie between Coquimbo Unido and Platense in the quarterfinals, and on that road the goalkeeper will once again be what he has been for 25 years: not a symbol to be protected, but a reason for his team to believe. At 45, Fábio keeps enlarging the legend the only way he has ever known. By saving.
