Footballers' teeth are whiter and whiter Veneers are a trend among players and coaches

"I want them whiter than the whitest shade you've got". That was the request made a few years ago by Roberto Firmino, Brazilian forward and former Liverpool player, when he walked into the clinic of Robbie Hughes, the club’s go-to dentist. He would soon leave with a smile that, calling it white or bright, would be quite an understatement. A flash so dazzling that, during a TV appearance, your AirPods might look yellowed by comparison.

From that day on, Dr. Hughes became much more than just a collaborator of the Reds’ medical staff, transforming his clinic into a factory of veneers for Premier League footballers, riding the new ultra-white trend that had landed from South America. In case you hadn’t noticed, a new aesthetic obsession has exploded on football fields: not just the perfect teeth we were already used to, but the application of custom-shaped plates, in shades ranging from light to ultra-light and even ultra-bright.

A new trend

This phenomenon has emerged over the past decade and is marked by several milestones and memorable figures that have left an impression on sports fans. First is Cristiano Ronaldo, who, after undergoing orthodontic treatment early in his career, enhanced his smile with porcelain veneers. Then came Lucas Leiva, who was unknowingly a trailblazer. He was the first Brazilian at Liverpool to visit Robbie Hughes' Dental Excellence clinic and the first to recommend it to his teammates. Many followed, including Firmino, Philippe Coutinho, Jürgen Klopp, Neymar, Enzo Fernández and Rodrygo.

The trend has reached Serie A as well, with Ciro Immobile and Nicolò Zaniolo. But of course, the boom is visible far beyond football fields: the veneers business exceeded 2.5 billion dollars worldwide last year and is projected to grow even further in 2025, following the same trajectory as other increasingly common cosmetic enhancements like fillers, botox, hair transplants, and surgical and aesthetic procedures. These are especially popular among elite athletes, for obvious reasons of exposure and financial means. Dental Excellence, with its high-end price list, makes the cost of such procedures clear: between £7,000 and £25,000, depending on the material (composite or porcelain), the coverage (partial or full), and the shade.

From CR7 to Liverpool

Manchester, 2004. There are quite a few imperfections in the smile of a young Cristiano Ronaldo, and that summer the Portuguese star began his long journey towards his smile today. First came the fixed braces and night-time elastics, then the implantation of a new tooth and regular enamel whitening treatments. However, it was not until ten years later, when he had reached athletic maturity, that the final refinement arrived. In 2014, in Madrid, CR7 had twelve feldspathic porcelain veneers in shade B1, the lightest on the standard chart, fitted. There is no fluorescent white or LED effect; just a smile designed to look naturally perfect, like it used to happen on Hollywood red carpets.

Two years later, when Lucas Leiva brings a couple of his Brazilian teammates into the rooms of Dental Excellence, the concept of veneers is about to undergo an ideological shock. The midfielder is there for a simple realignment, but opens the door. He asks: "Can I bring a teammate?", as Robbie Hughes recalls in an interview with BBC. And that teammate is Bobby Firmino, newly arrived from Brazil and determined to get a smile that, let’s say, doesn’t aim for naturally perfect.

Bobby Dazzlers and followers

As mentioned, during the first appointment, Dr. Hughes shows Firmino the color palette available at the time, ranging from tone 4, ivory, to tone 1, the lightest. The striker looks, listens and smile then he asks, and this is no joke: "Don't you have anything whiter than 1?". From that declaration of intent, the Máximo is born, a custom off-chart shade created by adding optical pigments to an ultra-thin porcelain shell. Twenty-one teeth, full arch, and a spotlight that switches on every time the Brazilian opens his mouth. The result is so dazzling that his teammates nickname him Bobby Dazzlers.

From there, the domino effect kicks in: Philippe Coutinho books his session the same week, Sadio Mané the following summer, and even coach Jürgen Klopp is convinced, followed by his colleague Brendan Rodgers. "I want them one shade below Bobby’s" is the German’s request, as Hughes recounts. In less than two seasons, several faces around Liverpool now feature new veneers and/or supporting whitening, as clearly seen in team photos. And so the Reds become the unlikely lab of extreme whiteness, importing a Latin-rooted trend to the European football stage. When Neymar updates his smile in Paris, or Enzo Fernández appears in London with nearly ceramic teeth, the reference remains the same: that Máximo coined on the banks of the Mersey, now listed at clinics in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Everyone adds their own style: Neymar goes for reshaped canines and sparkling porcelain veneers; Rodrygo, Militão, and Gabriel Magalhães follow a similar path, but with a slightly more matte finish; Enzo Fernández instead takes a middle route: Máximo-colored veneers on the upper arch, bleached natural teeth on the lower. In Italy, Ciro Immobile in 2023 suddenly appears with a whiter, more uniform smile: some specialists suspect a ceramic rehab with reshaped incisors, though the player hasn’t confirmed or commented. In contrast, Nicolò Zaniolo documents every step of his dental journey in Istanbul, a well-known hub for this and other types of surgery. His 48-hour experience is replicable for foreign clients too: consultation at Natural Clinic Global, color tests, milling and cementing of the veneers, procedure, social media photos to show the before and after. That's it. Welcome to the porcelain smile era.