Phillipe Coutinho says he is leaving boyhood club Vasco da Gama because he is “tired mentally” and his “cycle at the club has ended”.<\/p>\n
The former Liverpool and Barcelona midfielder was substituted at half-time after being booed by fans during Vasco’s win on penalties over Volta Redonda last week.<\/p>\n
Coutinho, who has 68 caps for Brazil, did not return to the bench in the second half to watch the remainder of the game.<\/p>\n
In a lengthy, emotional statement on Instagram, the 33-year-old says he is leaving Vasco because “now is the time to take step back”.<\/p>\n
“I would never disrespect the fans, my team-mates and Vasco. I’ve never done that anywhere I’ve been. Those who know me know that,” he said.<\/p>\n
“At that moment, on the way to the locker room, I felt and realised that my cycle at the club had ended, and I didn’t come back to prioritise my mental health.<\/p>\n
“It hurts a lot. The truth is that I’m very tired mentally. With a tight heart, I understand that now is the time to take a step back and end this cycle in Vasco.<\/p>\n
“I’m grateful for everything I’ve lived here. I’ll take Vasco with me forever. In the chest. In history. In life.”<\/p>\n
Vasco have not confirmed Coutinho’s departure but BBC Sport have reached out for comment.<\/p>\n
Coutinho has played 81 times and scored 17 goals for Vasco since rejoining for a second stint in 2024.<\/p>\n
He started his career at Vasco before joining Inter Milan and later moving to Liverpool in 2013.<\/p>\n
He scored 54 goals in 201 games for the Reds before joining Barcelona for \u00a3142m in 2018.<\/p>\n
He later had stints at Bayern Munich, Aston Villa and Al-Duhail before returning to Vasco.<\/p>\n
“I chose to go back to Vasco because I love this club. I love everything that Vasco represents in my life,” added Coutinho.<\/p>\n
“Wearing this shirt was one of the most important choices I’ve ever made. And, in every training session, in every game, I gave my best. Always!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phillipe Coutinho says he is leaving boyhood club Vasco da Gama because he is “tired mentally” and his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-433545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}