Joel Santana

Joel Santana
Personal information
Full name Joel Natalino Santana
Date of birth (1948-12-25) 25 December 1948 (age 75)
Place of birth Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Position(s) Defender
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1971–1972 Vasco da Gama 37 (11)
1973 Olaria 29 (8)
1974–1975 Vasco da Gama 18 (1)
1976–1980 América de Natal 148 (45)
Total 232 (65)
Managerial career
1981–1986 Al Wasl
1986–1987 Vasco da Gama
1988–1990 Al Nassr
1991 América
1991 Al-Hilal
1992–1993 Vasco da Gama
1994 Bahia
1995 Fluminense
1996 Flamengo
1997 Corinthians
1997–1998 Botafogo
1998 Flamengo
1999–2000 Bahia
2000 Botafogo
2000–2001 Vasco da Gama
2001–2002 Coritiba
2002–2003 Vitória
2003 Fluminense
2004 Guarani
2004 Internacional
2004–2005 Vasco da Gama
2005 Brasiliense
2005 Flamengo
2006 Vegalta Sendai
2007 Fluminense
2007–2008 Flamengo
2008–2009 South Africa
2010–2011 Botafogo
2011 Cruzeiro
2011–2012 Bahia
2012 Flamengo
2013 Bahia
2014 Vasco da Gama
2017 Boavista
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of February 5, 2012
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of February 5, 2010

Joel Natalino Santana (born 25 December 1948) is a Brazilian football coach and former player.[1] He was recently in charge of Vasco da Gama in 2014.

Biography

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Santana played his entire career as a central defender in his native Brazil in the 1970s. He became best known as a player at Vasco da Gama, but failed to earn a cap with the national team.[2] In 1980, he retired as a player and moved on to club management with Al Wasl in the United Arab Emirates. While much of his management career has been with Brazilian clubs, Santana has also coached clubs in Saudi Arabia and Vegalta Sendai in Japan's J-League.

Santana is one of the few head coaches to win Brazil's Campeonato Carioca with each of the four big clubs (Botafogo, Flamengo, Fluminense, and Vasco da Gama).[1] His playing style has been characterized as defensive, with the main objective of preventing the opposition from scoring.[3]

In 2004, Santana successfully kept Vasco da Gama from relegation to the second division of Campeonato Brasileiro in his fourth stint as club's head coach. A year later, he was hired by Flamengo to also save them from relegation, which he did successfully. Having established a reputation as an "escape artist" capable of rescuing teams from relegation, he returned to Flamengo in 2007 with the same goal. He not only prevented relegation, but lead the Rio state club to a surprising third place finish to qualify for the 2008 Copa Libertadores.[4]

In April 2008, Santana replaced his countryman, Carlos Alberto Parreira, as the coach of the South Africa national football team following a recommendation from Parreira himself who left the job for personal reasons. In October 2009 Santana was dismissed from the position due to the poor results achieved by the team; most notably a streak of eight defeats in his last nine games as coach of the Bafana Bafana.[5]

Joel Santana returned for his fifth spell as Flamengo's head coach on 3 February 2012.[6] On 23 July 2012, Santana, after two consecutives loses, against Corinthians and Cruzeiro, was fired from Flamengo.[7]

On 8 April 2013, after Jorginho's dismissal, Santana was hired for Bahia. He worked for fourth time at the Tricolor from Salvador.[8]

Santana is considered to be one of the most well-known managers in brazilian football history, winning many trophies with many big clubs like Flamengo, Vasco da Gama and Fluminense especially state leagues. He is also well-known for being one a few managers to have managed more than 1,000 games during his managerial career.

Santana retired in 2017, after managing Boavista at the end of the Carioca Championship.

Acting issues

In 2012, after a video featuring a post-match interview given by Santana during the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup when he was in charge of South Africa. the video went viral as a result of his poor English language skills, he acted in a commercial for Pepsi, saying code-switching phrases such as "Ele quer saber se your dog has a phone" ("He wants to know if your dog has a phone number" - a tongue-in-cheek Brazilian Portuguese slang expression used when picking up women) and "Me dá uma Pepsi. Pode to be?" ("Can you give me a Pepsi? Can it be?" [sic]).[9]

In 2013, he became the star of another commercial: an ad series for Head & Shoulders, again making light of his poor English. Happy with this and the former success, Santana told Brazilian sports channel SporTV about his experience in South Africa: "[Speaking English publicly] was indeed risky. The English-speaking press, very nobly, said: 'We don't care whether you are saying it right or wrong, mate, your feelings are actually what we want to know about.' And I think, in football, one needs to have feelings, otherwise, if one just philosophizes, one will never go further. Because of this, at that time, I risked myself. It turned out to be a plus, because I figured out a way to be a good pitchman."[10]

Managerial statistics

(as of 10 May 2024)

Team Nation From To Record
G W D L F A GD Win %
Al Wasl  United Arab Emirates 30 July 1981 30 June 1986 119 80 15 24 200 106 +94 67.23
Vasco da Gama  Brazil 1 August 1986 24 November 1987 63 28 18 17 97 48 +49 44.44
Al Nassr  Saudi Arabia 30 June 1988 30 May 1990 51 31 11 9 88 42 +46 60.78
America-RJ  Brazil 17 January 1991 30 May 1991 20 5 8 9 20 17 +3 25
Al-Hilal  Saudi Arabia 30 June 1991 30 December 1991 11 3 4 3 14 10 +4 27.27
Vasco da Gama  Brazil 10 January 1992 29 December 1993 100 56 28 16 175 83 +92 56
Bahia  Brazil 1 February 1994 14 December 1994 46 22 11 13 59 51 +8 47.83
Fluminense  Brazil 14 January 1995 28 December 1995 53 27 17 9 74 41 +33 56.82
CR Flamengo  Brazil 1 February 1996 20 December 1996 79 43 21 15 111 63 +48 54.43
Corinthians  Brazil 8 June 1997 16 December 1997 25 8 5 12 23 27 -4 32
CR Flamengo  Brazil 8 January 1998 15 September 1998 26 13 9 4 42 36 +6 50
Bahia  Brazil 10 January 1999 2 January 2000 55 27 19 9 101 56 +45 49.09
Botafogo  Brazil 2 January 2000 7 September 2000 31 16 7 8 56 35 +21 51.61
Vasco da Gama  Brazil 10 September 2000 17 December 2001 68 34 17 17 137 87 +49 51.61
Coritiba  Brazil 19 December 2001 8 April 2002 14 5 2 7 26 30 -4 35.71
Vitória  Brazil 1 May 2002 24 March 2003 55 30 9 16 106 71 +35 54.55
Fluminense  Brazil 18 July 2003 1 October 2003 18 3 5 10 15 30 -15 16.67
Guarani  Brazil 5 January 2004 8 May 2004 21 3 11 6 20 27 -7 14.29
Internacional  Brazil 1 July 2004 2 September 2004 18 5 4 9 26 26 +0 27.78
Vasco da Gama  Brazil 27 September 2004 20 April 2005 32 13 10 9 53 44 +11 40.63
Brasiliense  Brazil 1 June 2005 23 October 2005 26 14 5 7 47 34 +13 53.85
CR Flamengo  Brazil 24 October 2005 30 December 2005 9 6 3 0 18 7 +11 66.67
Vegalta Sendai  Japan 1 February 2006 4 December 2006 50 22 14 14 76 44 +32 44
CR Flamengo  Brazil 30 July 2007 4 May 2008 54 35 7 12 103 62 +41 64.81
South Africa  South Africa 4 May 2008 14 October 2009 27 10 3 14 25 30 -5 37.04
Botafogo  Brazil 26 January 2010 22 March 2011 72 38 22 12 130 80 +50 52.78
Cruzeiro  Brazil 20 June 2011 2 September 2011 15 8 0 7 24 18 +6 53.33
Bahia  Brazil 4 September 2011 2 February 2012 23 10 5 8 33 29 +4 43.48
CR Flamengo  Brazil 3 February 2012 23 July 2012 29 15 5 9 51 40 +11 51.72
Bahia  Brazil 8 April 2013 13 May 2013 9 2 4 3 9 13 -4 22.22
Vasco da Gama  Brazil 7 September 2014 1 December 2014 18 7 7 4 21 17 +4 38.89
Boavista  Brazil 1 January 2017 6 May 2017 11 3 3 5 9 13 -4 27.27
Total 1,248 623 312 323 1,988 1,327 +661 49.92

Honors

Playing honors

América de Natal

Vasco da Gama

Managerial honors

Al Wasl FC

Al Nassr

Bahia

Botafogo

Flamengo

Fluminense

South Africa

Vasco da Gama

Vitória

References

  1. ^ a b Enciclopédia do Futebol Brasileiro Lance Volume 2. Rio de Janeiro: Aretê Editorial S/A. 2001. pp. 430–431. ISBN 85-88651-01-7.
  2. ^ Enciclopédia do Futebol Brasileiro Lance Volume 1. Rio de Janeiro: Aretê Editorial S/A. 2001. p. 99. ISBN 85-88651-01-7.
  3. ^ São Paulo empata e adia festa do tri[permanent dead link]
  4. ^ Recuperação Archived 16 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ "SA and Santana part company". BBC Sport. 19 October 2009. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
  6. ^ "Empresário de Joel confirma que técnico tem acerto com o Flamengo". Globo Esporte (in Portuguese). 3 February 2012. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
  7. ^ "Joel Santana técnico do Flamengo". Lance! (in Portuguese). 23 July 2012. Archived from the original on 26 July 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  8. ^ Experiente e vitorioso, Joel Santana retorna ao Bahia pela quarta vez
  9. ^ "Joel Santana gasta seu inglês em campanha da Pepsi" (in Portuguese). Exame Abril. Retrieved 26 February 2014.
  10. ^ "Joel comemora o sucesso de seu inglês: 'Virei garoto-propaganda'". Sportv (in Portuguese). June 2013. Retrieved 26 February 2014.