Elane dos Santos Rego (born 4 June 1968), commonly known as Elane, is a Brazilian retired

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as a central defender for the Brazil women's national football team. She represented Brazil at the

FIFA Women's World Cup The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), the sport's international governing bo ...

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

and

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

; as well as in the inaugural Olympic women's football tournament in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

Career

Elane was part of the EC Radar club team who represented Brazil at the

1988 FIFA Women's Invitation Tournament The 1988 FIFA Women's Invitation Tournament, or International Women's Football Tournament, was organised by FIFA in China from 1 to 12 June 1988. The competition was a test to study if a global women's World Cup was feasible following the experie ...

in Guangdong and finished in third place. At the

1991 FIFA Women's World Cup The 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup was the inaugural FIFA Women's World Cup, the world championship for women's national association football teams. It took place in Guangdong, China from 16 to 30 November 1991. FIFA, football's international gove ...

Elane played in all three Group B games and scored Brazil's first ever World Cup goal in their 1–0 opening match win over

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. An aggressive central defender, Elane remained a key player for Brazil at the

1999 FIFA Women's World Cup The 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup was the third edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the world championship for women's national soccer teams. It was hosted as well as won by the United States and took place from June 19 to July 10, 1999, at ...

, by which time she was playing for

São Paulo FC São Paulo Futebol Clube (), commonly referred to as São Paulo, is a professional football club in the Morumbi district of São Paulo, Brazil, founded in 1930. It plays in the Campeonato Paulista (the State of São Paulo's premier state leag ...

. A tournament preview on the SoccerTimes.com website described her as a strong tackler with modest speed. At the

1995 FIFA Women's World Cup The 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup, the second edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, was held in Sweden and won by Norway women's national football team, Norway, who became the first European nation to win the Women's World Cup. The tournament fea ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, English journalist Pete Davies, covering the tournament for '' The Independent'', caricatured Elane's committed approach: At club level Elane also played for São Cristóvão, Bonsucesso, Portuguesa, EC Radar, Santos, Corinthians, São Paulo and

Saad Esporte Clube Saad Esporte Clube – since 2009 commonly MS/Saad – is a Brazilian association football club founded 1961 in São Caetano do Sul on the outskirts of São Paulo. In the latter part of the first decade of the 21st century, the club established an ...

, ending her career in 2001 with Barra de Teresópolis (RJ). After her football career Elane worked as a bus driver in her native Rio. She was named equal seventh (with

Meg Meg is a feminine given name, often a short form of Megatron, Megan, Megumi (Japanese), etc. It may refer to: People *Meg (singer), a Japanese singer *Meg Cabot (born 1967), American author of romantic and paranormal fiction *Meg Burton Cahill ( ...

) in the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) South America's best Women's Footballer of the Century list.

References

External links

* 1968 births Living people Footballers from Rio de Janeiro (city) Olympic footballers of Brazil Footballers at the 1996 Summer Olympics 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup players 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup players Women's association football defenders Brazil women's international footballers Brazilian women's footballers EC Radar players 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup players São Paulo FC (women) players {{Brazil-women-footy-bio-stub