Thiago Santos Santana

Thiago Santana signed for V-Varen Nagasaki on a free transfer from Urawa Red Diamonds on 4 January 2026. His route there began in Brazil at São Carlos, from where a string of loans — to Caxias, Atlético Ibirama, Figueirense and Náutico — gave him his first taste of senior football.

A move to Portugal followed in 2016 with Vitória de Setúbal, but it was at Santa Clara, from 2017, that his goalscoring instincts became impossible to ignore. He scored 15 goals in 33 games in his first season as the club won promotion, and by October 2020 he had broken Zé Manuel's record for most Primeira Liga goals for Santa Clara, eventually leaving with 30 league goals across all divisions.

That form took him to Shimizu S-Pulse in December 2020, where he became one of the J1 League's most reliable strikers, scoring 39 league goals in 102 appearances between 2021 and 2023. The high point came in 2022, when he finished as the J1 League's top scorer with 14 goals and was named to the J.League Best XI. A switch to Urawa Red Diamonds in January 2024 kept his numbers up, with 13 goals in all competitions that season, 12 of them in the league.

Now at V-Varen Nagasaki, he brings a proven scoring record from three different Japanese clubs, along with the experience of a career built on making the most of opportunities earned through loan spells and gradual steps up the football ladder.