Joel Natalino Santana (born on December 25, 1948, in
Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil) is a Brazilian
football manager and former football player. He is the current head coach of the
Cruzeiro Esporte Clube.
Biography
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 managers 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 manager. 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...
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