Remember David Luiz? The eccentric Brazilian defender with a hairstyle that earned him the nickname of Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons?
Well, opposite to a general belief that he’s retired, the centre-back is still actively playing top-division football.
Since leaving Arsenal in 2021, the 35-year-old has returned to his home country of Brazil to be close to his loved ones.
He joined Flamengo last year and has made himself quite an important player for the Brazilian side.
Indeed, Luiz has gone on to help them win the Copa do Brasil and Copa Libertadores titles this year and reign supreme as the best team in South America.
The 35-year-old’s performances for the side haven’t really attracted him much attention, but something has recently helped him become viral on social media again.
It appears that the centre-back decided to let go of his ‘Sideshow Bob’ personality and completely change his appearance.
He no longer has that crazy afro hair that helped him stand apart from anywhere else in the Premier League.
Instead, he’s gone with a completely new and unique style to ensure fans don’t just remember him for his hair anymore.
Firstly, his hair isn’t a brunette colour anymore. He’s dyed it blonde, a trend which has been picked up by quite a few Brazilian footballers in recent years – with the likes of Neymar and Thiago Silva even pulling it off in the past. That itself has brought a remarkable change in his looks.
But that wasn’t the only change he brought to his hairstyle. Luiz has decided to let go of his iconic afro hairstyle and instead completely straighten all his hair.
He now has curlier hair and has been spotted pulling off a backbrush in a radical change in his appearance.
It appears that he might’ve taken Halloween too seriously and changed his looks to try and imitate someone else altogether.
Some fans have likened this change to him trying to look like the character of Aemond Targarayan from the HBO series ‘House of the Dragon’.
Luiz is a pretty popular figure in Brazil and an inspiring figure to many of the kids, having enjoyed a prolific career in Europe and with his national side as well.
His most successful period came with Chelsea, with whom he won the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League titles during a seven-season spell across two specific stints.
He also won two Ligue 1 titles with PSG during his two years at the club, as well as winning the FA Cup and Community Shield titles with Arsenal during a short spell before returning to Brazil.
While he only won the FIFA Confederations Cup with the Brazilian national team, nobody can forget his memorable free-kick winner in the 2014 World Cup against Colombia in the quarter-finals.
Luiz appears to have embraced a change as he nears the final steps of his career.
Having won it all, the Brazilian centre-back is now just looking to enjoy his last few years as an active player before he moves onto another chapter of his eventful life.
