Alessandro dos Santos

Alessandro dos Santos (三都主アレサンドロ, Santosu Aresandoro^?), born July 20, 1977 in Maringá, Paraná, Brazil, and often known as Alex, is a Brazilian-born football player who plays for the Japanese national team. He arrived in Japan in 1994, became a Japanese citizen in November 2001, and played in the 2002 FIFA World Cup and 2006 FIFA World Cup. Alex currently plays for Red Bull Salzburg of the Austrian Bundesliga. Alex left Brazil at age 16 to play high school soccer in Japan, and joined the J-League team Shimizu S-Pulse upon graduation in 1997. In 1999 he was named J-League Player of the Year, and in 2001, his citizenship application was approved in a very rapid eight months. He made his first appearance for Japan on March 21, 2002 against Ukraine, and he was part of Philippe Troussier's selection for that year's World Cup finals. Alex became the second foreign-born person to play for Japan in the World Cup finals after Wagner Lopes, also born in Brazil, who was an important player in Japan's 1998 World Cup squad. Alex is the third naturalized citizen to play for Japan after Lopes and another Brazilian-born Japanese citizen, Ruy Ramos, who played in Japan's unsuccessful campaign to qualify for the 1994 finals [1]. In August 2002, Alex agreed to join English Premier League club Charlton Athletic. But he was denied a work permit by the Home Office because he had not made the minimum number of national team appearances required for players from outside the European Union and returned to Shimizu for the remainder of the season. [2] In January 2004, he left Shimizu to join the Urawa Red Diamonds. Since Zico took over as the national team manager, Alex has been a constant on the left side of the Japanese lineup, as a fullback in 4-4-2 formation or midfielder in 3-5-2 formation, and was selected to Japan's 2006 World Cup squad in May 2006. On December 12, 2006, it was announced that Alex would be loaned out to Red Bull Salzburg at the end of January window [3].

Honors

Individual Honors

• J. League MVP: 1999
• J. League Best Eleven: 1999

Team Honors

• Asian Cup champions: 2004
• J. League Champions: 2006
• Asian Cup Winners Cup Champions: 1999
• Emperor's Cup Champions: 2002, 2005, 2006
• Japanese Super Cup Champions: 2002, 2006
• Austrian Bundesliga Champions: 2007

National Career Stats

Appearances in Major Competitions

Goals for national team

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1.	May 2, 2002	Kobe, Japan	Honduras	3-3	Drew	Friendly
2.	December 7, 2003	Saitama, Japan	Hong Kong	1-0	Won	Friendly
3.	February 12, 2004	Tokyo, Japan	Iraq	2-0	Won	Friendly
4.	May 30, 2004	Manchester, England	Iceland	3-2	Won	Friendly
5.	January 29, 2005	Yokohama, Japan	Kazakhstan	4-0	Won	Friendly
6.	August 9, 2006	Tokyo, Japan	Trinidad and Tobago	2-0	Won	Friendly
7.	August 9, 2006	Tokyo, Japan	Trinidad and Tobago	2-0	Won	Friendly

Trivia

A song was written about him, 1,2, Santos, by the Eurobeat artist Alessandra Mirka Gatti, for the Eurobeat album ULTRA'S STADIUM-I GOT THE FEVER. A very similar situation happens with the main character of the anime

See also

• List of Asian footballers with foreign heritage

External links

• Santos Alessandro Official Website
• National Football Teams
• No divided loyalties for Alex, FIFAworldcup.com, June 22, 2005

Preceded by Masashi Nakayama

J-League Player of the Year 1999

Succeeded by Shunsuke Nakamura

•  • e Japan squad - 2002 FIFA World Cup
1 Kawaguchi • 2 Akita • 3 Matsuda • 4 Morioka • 5 Inamoto • 6 Hattori • 7 H. Nakata • 8 Morishima • 9 Nishizawa • 10 Nakayama • 11 Suzuki • 12 Narazaki • 13 Yanagisawa • 14 Alex • 15 Fukunishi • 16 K. Nakata • 17 Miyamoto • 18 Ono • 19 Ogasawara • 20 Myojin • 21 Toda • 22 Ichikawa • 23 Sogahata • Coach: Troussier

•  • e Japan squad - 2006 FIFA World Cup
1 Narazaki • 2 Moniwa • 3 Komano • 4 Endo • 5 Miyamoto • 6 K. Nakata • 7 H. Nakata • 8 Ogasawara • 9 Takahara • 10 Nakamura • 11 Maki • 12 Doi • 13 Yanagisawa • 14 Alex • 15 Fukunishi • 16 Oguro • 17 Inamoto • 18 Ono • 19 Tsuboi • 20 Tamada • 21 Kaji • 22 Nakazawa • 23 Kawaguchi • Coach: Zico