From Giorgio Chiellini to Andrea Barzagli, from Gaetano Scirea to Leonardo Bonucci, from Fabio Cannavaro to Claudio Gentile, the illustrious history of Juventus Football Club has been littered with an array
of legendary defenders who have put their body on the line and provided the foundation for success.
Pick any elite era of Juve that you’d like, be that their unprecedented run of nine straight Scudetti from 2012 to 2020, or Marcello Lippi’s all-conquering side of the late 1990s, and there’s a chance that Juve had at least one world-class defender in their backline.
Today, it’s evident that Juve have quite a few decent center backs like Daniele Rugani, Pierre Kalulu, Federico Gatti, and Lloyd Kelly. However, arguably the only player who is considered amongst the upper echelon of Serie A center backs, the only one who can go blow for blow with the likes of Alessandro Bastoni, Alessandro Buongiorno and Fikayo Tomori, is Gleison Bremer Silva Nascimento.
Born on March 18, 1997, in Itapitanga, Bahia, Bremer was destined to a defender from the very start after his father named him in honor of legendary German wingback Andreas Brehme. He bounced around from Desportivo Brasil to São Paulo to Atlético Mineiro before making the move to Italy in 2018, joining Serie A outfit Torino on a five-year deal.
Starved of minutes in his first season in Europe, Bremer was able to make inroads into the team following the retirement of Emiliano Moretti and locked down a starting spot in the second half of the 2019-20 season and parlayed that into a stellar 2020/21 season, which saw him emerge as one of the revelations of the Serie A campaign alongside the likes of Simy, Emmanuel Gyasi and Dušan Vlahović and help the Granata narrowly stave off the drop.
Bremer built on his momentum and led Torino to an impressive 10th-place finish in 2021-22, combining his rock-solid aerial prowess with a willingness to get stuck in and make his presence felt. He thrived at breaking the lines with his well-drilled passes and switches of play, and he proved a multifaceted defender in terms of both allowing Torino to soak up pressure and park the bus, as well as proving capable of tracking back and reacting quickly to prevent opposing counter-attacking transitions from arising.
It’s precisely these stellar displays which earned him the Best Defender of the Serie A season, and which landed him on the radar of Italy’s biggest clubs. Ultimately, it was Juventus, desperate to reclaim their dynasty after watching Inter and Milan take turns lifting the championship, who signed him on a five-year deal for a fee rising to €47 million.
Having racked up 13 goals and five assists in 110 appearances across his time at the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino, Bremer continued to showcase his goal-scoring aptitude on the other side of Turin, registering five goals and an assist in 43 appearances across the 2022-23 season and emerging as an ever-present under Massimiliano Allegri.
Bremer excelled on both ends of the pitch, leading Juve in Serie A for clearances per game (3.8), interceptions per game (1.4), and accurate passes per game (50.0). He then scored 3 goals and 1 assist in 40 appearances to spearhead them to a third-placed finish in 2023/24, where he was named to the Serie A Team of the Season for the third straight year, in addition to winning his first-ever trophy as a professional footballer with the Coppa Italia title.
All things considered, things were going just as well as they could have been for Bremer. He extended his deal through 2029 and continued to play every single minute under new manager Thiago Motta, who, like him, left Brazil for Italy at an early age, and he even wore the captain’s armband on occasion. However, on October 2, 2024, Bremer suffered his worst nightmare after sustaining an anterior cruciate ligament injury in the sixth minute of their UEFA Champions League match against RB Leipzig.
He returned to action on Aug. 24, 2025, helping Juve secure a 2-0 win in their season opener vs. Parma, followed by a 1-0 win at Genoa and a 4-3 win vs. Inter — where he assisted two goals — before captaining the side in stalemates against Borussia Dortmund and Atalanta. But just when he looked to be finding his way back to peak form, Bremer injured his meniscus and missed 78 days of action before finally returning in a 1-0 win over Bologna on Dec. 14.
Bremer was then inserted into the starting lineup — where he has remained ever since — and registered five clearances and 10 defensive contributions in an hour-long start in a 2-1 win over Roma. He played the full 90 in their next three matches, which saw them concede just one goal, before opening the scoring in a 5-0 win against Cremonese. And while he was unable to prevent them from losing 1-0 to Cagliari, he nevertheless bounced back and kept things tight at the back against Primeira Liga top scorer Vangelis Pavlidis to lead Juve to a 2-0 win against Benfica.
The best ability is availability, and that’s currently the biggest question around Bremer as he approaches his 29th birthday. He’s already displayed his sensational performances for both Juventus and Torino, and he’s even competed on the world’s biggest stage for Brazil, making five caps in total. Right now, what he needs to focus on is staying fit, and thanks to Luciano Spalletti’s possession-heavy style of play, he’s able to do just that and put far less stress on his body.
“When I played in Brazil, I used to carry the ball a lot,” stated Bremer in a recent interview with Corriere della Sera. “In Italy it’s been different, and I didn’t have many coaches who asked me to do that. I started again with Thiago Motta, but then I got injured. Spalletti says I must be more incisive and take more risks — and he’s right.”
“After two injuries, you realize you can’t always rely on strength and speed — you must also use defensive awareness. That’s something I’m improving, studying opponents with the help of Juve’s video staff and a match analyst who follows me. I like Spalletti’s game because we keep the ball more, and it’s physically easier. Sometimes I think, ‘Wow, I don’t even feel the weight of my injury anymore.”
Only time will tell if Bremer can return to the Brazil national team for the first time since July 2024 and stake his place in the side ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but one thing’s for certain: if Juve are to finish in Serie A’s top four and embark on deep runs in the Coppa Italia and the Champions League, they’ll need Bremer to stay clear of any further injury woes.
