Leonardo de Deus Santos (born 18 April 1978), known as Dedé, is a retired Brazilian professional footballer who played as either a

left back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

or left midfielder. He played 13 years of his career with Borussia Dortmund, appearing in more than 400 official games and winning two Bundesliga championships.

Club career

Atlético Mineiro

Born in

Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte (, ; ) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million and with a metropolitan area of 6 million people. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropol ...

, Minas Gerais as the second of six brothers, Dedé was introduced to football at an early age, playing three-a-side matches with his brothers in his parents' apartment. "Our living room was the biggest room and also our playing field, with the doors to the kitchen and the bedroom as our goals. Well, you can imagine, we always broke things in the living room." On club level he first played for local

Clube Atlético Mineiro Clube Atlético Mineiro (), commonly known as Atlético Mineiro or Atlético, and colloquially as Galo (, "Rooster"), is the largest professional football club based in the city of Belo Horizonte, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Mi ...

, appearing in 30 Série A games in the 1997 season as the team finished in fourth position (two goals). Also in that year, Dedé was awarded with the '' Bola de Prata'' award by magazine Placar, being chosen the best player in his position in the national league.

Borussia Dortmund

Dedé signed for Germany's Borussia Dortmund for the 1998–99 campaign, aged only 20. He made his Bundesliga debut on 14 August 1998, being stretchered off in the early minutes of an eventual 1–2 away loss against VfB Stuttgart, but finished his first year with 29 appearances as the ''Black Yellow'' finished fourth. In the following season, Dedé was joined at Borussia by compatriot Evanílson, and the two proceeded to form an efficient wingback partnership in the following four years, being essential as the club won the 2002 league and reached that year's UEFA Cup final (with the player appearing in a total of 45 official games during the campaign, scoring once); he never appeared in less than 30 games from 2004 to 2008. Afterwards, as his countryman before him, Dedé also begun suffering with injury problems, also facing stiff left-back competition from younger Marcel Schmelzer. He only appeared in 33 league matches in his last three seasons combined, including just four in

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

for his second national championship.

Later years

On 27 July 2011, 33-year-old Dedé signed for Turkish club Eskişehirspor. He retired after three seasons in the Süper Lig, being subsequently appointed assistant coach under former Borussia boss

Michael Skibbe Michael Heinz Skibbe (born 4 August 1965) is a German former football player and current manager of Japanese club Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Club career In his youth, Skibbe played for SG Wattenscheid 09, then moved to the professional team of FC Sc ...

International career

Dedé earned his first and only cap for Brazil in April 2004, in a 4–1

friendly Friendly may refer to: Places * Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England * Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States * Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States * ...

win over Hungary. Earlier that year, he had expressed a desire to represent the

German national team German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

. The

Qatar Football Association The Qatar Football Association ( ar, الاتحاد القطري لكرة القدم, al-Ittiḥād al-Qaṭariyy li-Kurat al-Qadam) is the governing body of football in Qatar. President Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Bin Ahmed Al-Thani is currently ...

also offered Dedé to represent their national team in 2004 despite having no ties to

the country ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

blocked his switch of nationality and tightened eligibility requirements as a result.

Personal life

Dedé's brothers, Cacá and Leandro, were also footballers. They too had (short) spells in Germany, with the latter coinciding with him at Borussia Dortmund.

Honours

Atlético Mineiro * Copa CONMEBOL:

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

Borussia Dortmund * Bundesliga: 2001–02,

* UEFA Cup: Runner-up 2001–02 * DFB-Pokal: Runner-up 2007–08 * DFB-Ligapokal: Runner-up 2003

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dede 1978 births Living people Footballers from Belo Horizonte Brazilian footballers German footballers Naturalized citizens of Germany German people of Brazilian descent Association football defenders Association football midfielders Campeonato Brasileiro Série A players Clube Atlético Mineiro players Bundesliga players Borussia Dortmund players Borussia Dortmund II players Süper Lig players Eskişehirspor footballers Brazil international footballers Brazilian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Germany Expatriate footballers in Turkey Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Germany Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Turkey German expatriate sportspeople in Turkey