Joel Santana

Joel Natalino Santana (born 25 December 1955) is a Brazilian football coach and former player. 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. 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).

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.

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.

Joel Santana returned for his fifth spell as Flamengo's head coach on 3 February 2012. On 23 July 2012, Santana, after two consecutive losses against Corinthians and Cruzeiro, was fired from Flamengo.

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

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 (following the 0–0 draw against Iraq in the opening game) 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]).

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."

Managerial statistics (as of 10 May 2024)

Honours

Player honours América de Natal Campeonato Potiguar: 1974, 1977, 1979, 1980

Vasco da Gama Campeonato Carioca: 1970 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A: 1974

Managerial honours

Al Wasl FC UAE Pro League: 1982, 1983, 1985

Al Nassr Saudi Pro League: 1989

Bahia Campeonato Baiano: 1994, 1999

Botafogo Campeonato Carioca: 1997, 2010

Flamengo Campeonato Carioca: 1996, 2008

Fluminense Campeonato Carioca: 1995

South Africa national team 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup (4th place)

Vasco da Gama Campeonato Carioca: 1992, 1993 Copa Mercosur: 2000 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A: 2000

Vitória Campeonato Baiano: 2003 Supercampeonato Baiano: 2002