When Gavin Manders speaks about Marco Warren, he does not start with goals or caps or MVP trophies. He starts with a boy.

Bermuda’s former No 1 tennis player turned pickleball evangelist knows what it is to walk out alone and represent this small, proud dot in the Atlantic, but his closeness to Warren was not confined to a love of sport.

“Marco was special to me because my relationship with him went way beyond football,” Manders said.

“I knew him from young, and in some ways I mentored him around what it meant to become the best version of yourself, to have that champion mentality and to really pursue excellence.

“But as he grew into the man and champion he became, that relationship evolved. He inspired me too.”

As they matured the pair stood as two sons of Bermuda. Different sports, same altar.

“We shared that same obsession with excellence,” said Manders. “Different sports, different journeys but that same mindset of wanting to find out how good you could actually become and never being satisfied with just being good by Bermuda standards.”

Some of Manders’s favourite memories did not come under floodlights or a football pitch. They came on a tennis court, playing football tennis for hours while Bermuda's pantheon of former champions watched.

“Some of my favourite memories with Marco were actually on the tennis court playing football tennis and e would battle for hours,” Manders recalled.

“You'd have previous champions and some of Bermuda’s great athletes sitting around watching us basically go to war because neither one of us wanted to lose. The competitiveness was serious — but every single time it was all love when it was finished.

“That was Marco. He could compete with everything he had and still never lose the love and respect underneath it.”

Indeed, Warren’s magnificence did not shout. It whispered.

“His greatness wasn’t loud,” Manders said. “He didn’t have to tell you who he was. You could see it in the way he carried himself, how he competed, how he treated people and the standard he lived by.

“What made him even more special was that football was never the whole person. He cared deeply about his family, his community, young people and those around him.”

When the verdict came after months of waiting, Manders did not think of the courtroom. He thought of a family.

“All I really thought about was his family,” he said. “Nothing that happens in a courtroom brings Marco back. Vega still grows up without his father. His mother still lives without her son. His sisters still live without their brother and best friend.

“Hopefully, for those in the family who needed some form of accountability or closure through this process, the verdict gives them something that helps them continue healing.

“Love people while they’re here. Give people their flowers while they’re here. Live fully while you're here.”

What did Bermuda lose on that May night in Hamilton Parish three years ago?

“Bermuda lost a legend in the making,” Manders said. “On the field, I genuinely believe Marco would have gone on to break records and continue building a football legacy that would have stood among the very best this country has produced.

“Bermuda lost a generational treasure. We lost the player he still had the potential to become, but also the mentor, father, leader and community figure that he would have continued growing into. That, for me, is the bigger loss.”

Manders constantly honours his friend’s memory, wearing Marco’s brand on podiums around the world. But he dreams bigger — that one of Bermuda's major football trophies should carry Warren's name. That perhaps the very stretch of tarmac where tragedy struck might be renamed, not as a morbid memorial but as a living reminder.

“Beyond names on trophies or roads, the most meaningful thing most of us can do is support his family, support his brand and help protect what he was building, especially for Vega,” Manders said.

“His family already know that as long as I am alive, Vega will never have to pay for racket sports. If there is ever anything I can give him through tennis, pickleball, mentorship or just being there for him, that door will always be open.

“To me, that’s how you really honour somebody you loved. Not only by remembering them, but by continuing to look after the people and things they loved when they were here.”

Spoken like a champion. Spoken like a brother.