Felipe Santana

Felipe Augusto Santana (born 17 March 1986), known as Felipe Santana, is a Brazilian professional footballer.

Having started his football career at Figueirense since 1996 and progressed through the club's youth system, Santana made his professional football debut for Figueirense, starting the whole game, in a 1–0 win against Paraná on 24 September 2006.

On 18 November 2006, he made his second appearance of the season, in a 2–0 win against Flamengo.

At the end of the 2006 season, Santana made two appearances in all competitions.

At the start of the 2007 season, Santana began to establish himself in the first team place, playing in the centre–back position.

On 3 July 2007, he scored his first goal of his professional career, in a 2–1 win over Cruzeiro.

Two weeks later on 14 July 2007, Santana scored his second goal of the season, in a 2–1 win over Paraná.

Twelve days later on 26 July 2007, he scored his third goal of the season, in a 2–2 draw against Corinthians.

Santana helped the club keep four consecutive clean sheets between 4 October 2007 and 21 October 2007.

At the end of the 2007 season, he went on to make thirty–six appearances and scoring three times in all competitions.

In the opening game of the 2008 season, Santana scored a brace, in a 5–5 draw against Portuguesa, in what turned out to be his only appearance of the season.

On 16 May 2008, Santana joined Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund, with a fee in the region of €2,000,000 and signed a five-year deal.

Upon joining the club, Borussia Dortmund's sports manager Michael Zorc said about the match: "It doesn't cost one, but also not three million euros. He's a player like Werder Bremen's Naldo. Maybe even a little more aggressive."

Having appeared in the substitute bench in the first two months of the 2008–09 season, Santana made his debut for the club, starting a match and played 67 minutes before being substituted, in a 2–0 loss against Udinese in the first leg of the UEFA Cup first round.

However, Borussia Dortmund were eliminated from the tournament after losing on penalties in the return despite coming back from 2–0 down to equalise.

Three days later after making his debut for the club, he made his league debut against Hoffenheim on 21 September 2008 and scored his first goal in a 4–1 loss.

This was followed up by scoring his second goal for Borussia Dortmund, in a 3–0 win over Stuttgart.

After missing the next six matches due to injury, Santana returned to the starting line–up against Eintracht Frankfurt on 15 November 2008 and scored his third goal for the club, in a 4–0 win.

Following this, he regained his first team place, forming a centre–back partnership with Neven Subotić for the rest of the 2008–09 season.

Santana then helped Borussia Dortmund keep four consecutive clean sheets between 18 April 2009 and 9 May 2009.

During which, he scored his fourth goal for the club, in a 4–0 win against Karlsruher SC.

In his first season at Borussia Dortmund, Santana made twenty-three appearances and scoring four times in all competitions.

At the start of the 2009–10 season, Santana continued to regain his first team place, forming a centre–back partnership with Subotić.

In a match against Bayern Munich on 12 September 2009, he was at fault when his mistakes led Thomas Müller scoring Bayern Munich's fourth goal of the game, as the club lost 5–1 on 12 September 2009.

As a result, Santana was dropped to the substitute bench between 19 September 2009 and 31 October 2009, though he started two times for Borussia Dortmund.

He returned to the starting line–up against Werder Bremen on 8 November 2009 and helped Borussia Dortmund draw 1–1.

Following this, Santana found himself in and out of the starting line–up, competing in a centre–back position with Mats Hummels and Subotić throughout the 2009–10 season.

At times, he rotated into the starting line–up when either of Hummels and Subotić were absent from the squad.

At the end of the 2009–10 season, Santana went on to make twenty–seven appearances in all competitions.

At the start of the 2010–11 season, Santana found himself placed on the substitute bench, as Mats Hummels and Subotić were continued to be Borussia Dortmund's first choice centre–backs by Manager Jürgen Klopp.

On 22 September 2010, he made his first appearance of the season against Kaiserslautern, coming on as a 78th-minute substitute, in a 5–0 win.

As a result, Santana found his playing time, mostly coming from the substitute bench.

Santana later made four more starts for the club later in the 2010–11 season.

At the end of the 2010–11 season, he went on to make thirteen appearances in all competitions.

He made his first start of the season, starting the whole game, in a 0–0 draw against rivals, Schalke 04 on 4 February 2011.

His contributions to the club saw them win the league for the first time since 2002 after they beat Nürnberg 2–0 on 30 April 2011.

Ahead of the 2011–12 season, Santana said in an interview that he wanted to leave Borussia Dortmund and doesn't want to stay at the club to be on the substitute bench.

But Borussia Dortmund's sport manager Zorc said the player will not be leaving the club.

At the start of the 2011–12 season, Santana formed a centre–back partnership with Hummels against rivals, Schalke 04 in the DFL-Supercup and played 120 minutes in a 0–0 draw, as Borussia Dortmund lost 4–3 in the penalty shootout.

He then started with Hummels in the first two league matches against Hamburger SV and Hoffenheim.