Thiago Santos

Coritiba is the ninth club of Thiago Santos's career, and it comes with a familiar shape: a free transfer, and an offer of security few of his previous employers matched. The centre-back terminated his contract with Fluminense by mutual agreement in December 2025 to join Coritiba, who had just won promotion to the Campeonato Brasileiro's top flight, on a deal reported to run into 2026 or 2027.

Santos started out at Nacional (Uberaba), then moved through Araxá, Ipatinga, Linense and América-MG before Palmeiras signed him in 2015 after triggering a release clause worth around R$ 1 million. That transfer changed the course of his career: over four seasons in São Paulo he made 173 appearances and won two Brazilian league titles, a Copa do Brasil, a Campeonato Paulista and two editions of the Copa Libertadores.

In January 2020 he left for FC Dallas for a $1 million fee, one of a wave of Brazilian defenders exported to MLS at the time, staying just over a year before returning home. Grêmio signed him as a free agent in 2021, and he won the Campeonato Gaúcho that year, before a further free move to Fluminense in 2023, where he added the Recopa Sudamericana in 2024 to his collection.

Santos has never won a senior cap for Brazil, and his career has been built instead on steady accumulation at club level: a defensive midfielder by trade who settled into central defence, moving on a free or for a release clause more often than for a fee, and picking up honours along the way at almost every stop.