Maciel Luiz Franco (born 15 March 1972 in

Bandeira do Sul Bandeira do Sul is a Brazilian municipality located in the state of Minas Gerais. Its population is estimated to be 5,778 people, living between 660 and 989 meters elevation. The area of Bandeira do Sul is 46.917 km². The city belongs to ...

), also known as Maciel, is a

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian former professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player. He is considered one of the best foreign players in the

K-League K League (Hangul: K리그) is South Korea's professional football league. It includes first division K League 1 and second division K League 2. History Until the 1970s, South Korean football operated two major football leagues, the National S ...

Career

Chunnam Dragons

Maciel spent seven years playing for

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

club

Chunnam Dragons The Jeonnam Dragons (Korean: 전남 드래곤즈) are a South Korean professional football club based in the city of Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province that competes in the K League 2, the second tier of South Korean football. The Dragons play thei ...

, from 1997 to 2003. He was awarded K-League Best Eleven for four straight seasons and won the K-League Best Defender of the Year in the 1998 season. He wanted to gain Korean citizenship before the

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

, but abandoned his attempt eventually.

Club career statistics

References

External links

* 1972 births Living people Men's association football defenders Brazilian men's footballers Brazilian expatriate men's footballers União São João Esporte Clube players Jeonnam Dragons players K League 1 players Expatriate men's footballers in South Korea Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in South Korea {{Brazil-footy-defender-1970s-stub