Démosthenes Magalhães, in Brazil better known as Démosthenes and in Italy as Demostene Bertini (born 17 November 1909, date of death unknown), was a Brazilian

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player. He was born in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

. In 1931 Démosthenes succeeded

Fernando Giudicelli Fernando Rubens Pasi Giudicelli – esp. in Brazil often just Fernando – (1 March 1906 in Rio de Janeiro – 28 December 1968 in Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian football player. He participated in the World Cup of 1930 and played for clubs in ...

- who went on to play for

FC Torino Torino Football Club (), commonly referred to as Torino or simply Toro, is an Italian professional football club based in Turin, Piedmont. They currently play in Serie A. Founded as ''Foot-Ball Club Torino'' in 1906, Torino are among the mos ...

, being one of the first Brazilian men's footballers pursuing a career as a professional in Europe - in the mid-field of

Fluminense FC Fluminense Football Club (), known as Fluminense, is a Brazilian sports club best known for its professional football team that competes in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the first tier of Brazilian football and the Campeonato Carioca, ...

in Rio de Janeiro. On a visit to Rio in 1932 Giudicelli convinced Démosthenes to join him on the way back to Italy to play professionally too. As those days only people of Italian heritage, so-called

Oriundi The term oriundo (; Italian plural ''oriundi'') is an Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese noun describing an immigrant in a country, whose ancestry is from that same country. It comes from the Latin verb ''oriri'' (''orior''), "be born", and is etym ...

, were permitted to do so he changed his name to the more Italian sounding ''Demostene Bertini''.

Mário Filho Mário Rodrigues Filho, better known as Mário Filho (Recife, June 3, 1908 – Rio de Janeiro, September 17, 1966) was a Brazilian journalist and writer. Born in the capital of Pernambuco state, Mário Filho moved to Rio while still a child, in ...

: ''O negro no futebol brasileiro'', 1947, p. 183. Filho used Démosthenes as an example, that Brazilian players would rather give up their names than their nationality.

Fausto dos Santos Fausto dos Santos (28 January 1905 – 29 March 1939), sometimes known as just Fausto, was a football (soccer) player, considered one of the best defensive midfielders of Vasco da Gama of the first half of past century. At the time, he and Ja ...

and

Jaguaré Bezerra de Vasconcelos Jaguaré is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo. Its population was 31,039 (2020) and its area is 660 km². The municipality contains part of the Sooretama Biological Reserve Sooretama Biological Reserve ( pt, Rese ...

only a few years earlier preferred to abandon a well remunerated engagement with FC Barcelona, rather than to give in on demands for their naturalisation. Thus, in the season 1932/33 Démosthenes played together with Giudicelli in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

. The technically gifted player had an excellent start, but soon ran into difficulties with regards to defending his claim to Italian origin, which caused him to be sidelined for some time. After this, he found it difficult to live up to his potential, and frequently was left out of the starting line-up. Until the end of the season 1933/34 he ran up 30 matches for Torino, who finished 7th and 12th in those two seasons. After that he was transferred to

Sampierdarenese Unione Calcio Sampdoria, commonly referred to as Sampdoria (), is an Italian professional football club based in Genoa. The club was formed in 1946 from the merger of two existing sports clubs whose roots can be traced back to the 1890s, S ...

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

where he became part of their standard line-up and played in 28 league matches, finishing the season in 13th place. In 1936 he took part in a friendly match for Fluminense, for which he thus played in total 39 times.

References

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Estatísticas Fluminense
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', www.enciclopediadelcalcio.it *
Bertini Demostene
', Wikicalcio 1909 births Year of death missing Brazilian men's footballers Fluminense FC players Serie A players Torino FC players Brazilian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Men's association football midfielders Footballers from Rio de Janeiro (city) {{Brazil-footy-midfielder-stub