Japan · 1999–2010Alex Santos
Rating
80
#31
Editorial rank of 33 for Japan
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The people's rank, live from duel votes
Sixteen when he left Maringá for a boarding school in Kochi, he was J.League MVP in 1999 while still Brazilian, took Japanese citizenship in 2001, and debuted for Japan against Ukraine in March 2002, ten weeks before the home World Cup. He played all six matches of Japan's 2004 Asian Cup win, went to two World Cups and finished on 82 caps, and won J1 titles with Urawa in 2006 and Nagoya in 2010 alongside three Emperor's Cups.
Shared the era
Japan legends whose careers overlapped Santos's