André Ramalho Silva

The name doubles for a mistake few Corinthians followers made twice: for a stretch after his 2024 arrival, fans conflated André Ramalho with Murillo, the other Brazilian centre-back who had worn the club's number five before leaving for Nottingham Forest. Ramalho took the shirt number outright, and with it a career built almost entirely outside Brazil.

He left for Austria in 2013, joining Red Bull Salzburg, and stayed largely within German-speaking football for the best part of a decade. Two years in Salzburg were followed by a move to Bayer, then a loan spell at Mainz before he returned to Salzburg in 2018. That second spell was the most decorated of his career: six Austrian league titles and four Austrian Cups, a run of consistency that few defenders anywhere in Europe could match over the same years.

PSV took him to the Netherlands in 2021, and he added a league title and two domestic cups there as well, extending a trophy record that had already marked him out as a serial winner without ever making him a headline name. He returned home in 2024, signing for Corinthians, and picked up further honours almost immediately: the Campeonato Paulista, the Brazilian Cup and the Brazilian Super Cup.

What stands out about Ramalho's path is less a single moment than its shape: a Brazilian defender who spent more than a decade winning things in Austria and the Netherlands before ever playing top-flight football at home. André Ramalho arrived at Corinthians already carrying more silverware than most of his new team-mates, even if few in the stands had followed the years that produced it.