A Portuguese player and an Argentine helped Vasco beat Santos by turn. A Uruguayan paved the way for Grêmio’s victory over Atletico-MG. A Spaniard prevented Corinthians from debuting with defeat against Bahia. And Sport benefited from an Argentine’s error to draw a draw from Sao Paulo.
The opening round of the 2025 Brazilian Championship reproduced last weekend, which has been increasingly frequent in the main event of the country, where the presence and protagonism of foreign players are increasingly remarkable.
The new edition of the National Tournament has, so far, 140 foreign athletes, more than one fifth of the total subscribers (20.9%). Most come from Argentina, with 47 names (33.6%), followed by Uruguay, with 27 athletes (19.3%), and Colombia, with 15 players (10.7%).
In all, there are 18 countries from four continents, represented in the tournament – in addition, of course, from Brazil.
Although significant, the current number does not exceed the 164 gringos that passed the Brazilian in 2024, when the championship recorded its record. The brand, however, can be surpassed in the middle of the year, when the international transfer window will be opened and clubs should move in search of reinforcements.
The presence of foreign athletes in the Brazilian more than tripled in the last decade, according to the Sheet He found from data from the Transfermarkt site, which adds data from employees and uses public sources and sports vehicles to validate information.
In 2015, there were only 48 foreign professionals in the country, which corresponded to 29.2% of what was seen last year.
In the same period, the participation of these players in the total of registrants in the tournament also increased. In the 2015 season, they represented 4.5% of the casts. In 2024, this value jumped to 15%.
Some factors help to understand migration to Brazil, especially from South American countries, where there is a huge disparity between the financial power of Brazilian clubs and their rivals of the continent.
Awards paid by national leagues are a good example of this. Brazilian champion in 2024, 29 years after its last national title, Botafogo received R $ 48.1 million for the achievement. The value is almost seven times higher than that pocketed by LDU, Ecuadorian champion last season. The Quito Club received US $ 1.2 million (R $ 6.9 million) for its 13th National Trophy.
The Uruguayan Championship, the third league with the largest prize in South America, allocated US $ 750,000 (R $ 5.8 million) to Peñarol, which added the 52nd cup to its trophy gallery. No other national champion of the continent had an awards of over R $ 5 million in 2024.
The difference makes Brazilian football increasingly attractive to the main players of the continent, who land here younger and younger.
The foreigner who has been in Brazil for more years, in the period analyzed, is Uruguayan Giorgian de Arrascaeta, 30, current midfielder of Flamengo. After working only two years as a professional in his country, by the defender, he came to Brazil in 2015, at the age of 20.
Here, he built a victorious career. First, with the Cruzeiro shirt, for which he was two -time champion of the Brazilian Cup (2017 and 2018). Then, it was sold to the red-black team, where it has accumulated 15 trophies, highlighting two Libertadores (2019 and 2022), two Brazilian championships (2019 and 2020) and two Brazilian Cups (2022 and 2024). Your current contract runs until 2026.
Arrascaeta is currently the 15th most valuable player of the 2025 edition of Libertadores, the main club tournament on the continent.
Also according to data from Transfermarkt, the 100 most valuable players of the continental event, 70 belong to Brazilian teams. In the top 10, the only one who operates abroad is midfielder Franco Mastantuono, 17, athlete of River Plate, precisely in the tenth position. Stephen, 17, from Palmeiras, is the one who leads.
In addition to promising young people from South America, Brazilian clubs have also sought reinforcements with more experience, especially in Europe. In 2024, for example, Corinthians reinforced themselves with Dutchman Memphis Depay, 31, the second largest top scorer of their national team.
The 10 alvinegro shirt was without a club, but to close the deal within the financial level to which the player was used to Europe, the São Jorge Parque club had to resort to the help of one of its sponsors.
Corinthians is currently the second club with the most foreigners in their cast, next to Grêmio. Both teams each have 11 athletes from outside the country. Vasco is the most international team, with 12 names.
“The advancement of resources from the analysis departments make clubs turn their attention to other markets, with very financially advantageous options, but mainly bring technical and performance gains,” he says to Sheet Sport President Yuri Romão.
“Today, Sport has a multiplrality in the cast, including three Europeans, and I believe it ends up valuing the competition even more, on and off the pitch,” add the club leader who has eight foreigners in his squad.
Faced with the migration movement, there was a need to change the rules of the country’s main championship. In agreement with the clubs, the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) made two recent changes. In 2023, the number of foreign athletes that can be related to a match rose from five to seven. In 2024, there was a new increase, from seven to nine, amount maintained to 2025.
“This enables clubs to have an even greater range of opportunities in the South American market, in such a clear and obvious growth, bringing us extremely interesting options for great players. More than the financial issue, we are mainly talking about technical quality,” says José Olavo Bisol, vice president of Internacional, with nine foreigners in his cast.
When the change was approved, the president of Fenapaf (National Federation of Professional Football Athletes), Alfredo Sampaio, criticized the decision, on the grounds that the presence of more foreigners in Brazil would take away the country’s athletes in the main clubs, and affect the DNA of the competition.
The entity, however, was one of the few voices contrary to the movement, which gives no signs of retreat.
