Wanderson's K League journey began in the summer of 2015 when he signed for a Daejeon Citizen side that was in the midst of a relegation battle. The Brazilian was brought in to add reinforcements in both defence and attack as the then 26-year-old was able to play all over the pitch with ease.
"Since I started (playing football) I had a dream of playing abroad and I think I came here with a purpose. I came to Korea, a country that me and my family love, and I was able to adapt very well. But, being honest, I didn’t expect to be here for this amount of time. It’s a thing that I worked hard for, I’ve come here with the objective of being here for a long time and I believe when you put that in your mind that you want to adapt and you want to play, everything is possible. I had that dream and now I’m here for this long and I’m happy, playing for the club that we love in a city we love but in the beginning, I didn’t imagine being here for this long.
"Before coming to Korea, other countries were on the table but it didn’t go well. The possibility of coming to Korea arrived when I was doing pretty well at Fortaleza fighting to get promoted to the second division and when the offer came I didn’t hesitate. A couple of years before that I heard good things about Korea from a former Gyeongnam, Ulsan, and Gwangju Brazilian player, Lúcio Curió, so much that I started thinking “How is Korea?”
"I didn’t hesitate, I accepted it. They told me that Daejeon wasn’t in a good place, actually, they were in last place but I told them I want to go, I want to know how is to play abroad. When I arrived it was a quick yet difficult adaptation because of how badly the team was doing. But I had this dream and thanks to my insistence to be here, everything went well."
Arriving mid-season and at a team that was sitting bottom of the table, what were his first impressions?
"It’s a completely different league from the Brazilian one, it’s a tighter league where you have to run a lot, it’s harder physically. It also has very talented players, we see that Korea has a lot of players playing abroad even though it is a small country but I believe it is a very strong league, it’s not by chance that we had strong teams in the past who won the Asian Champions League. It’s a league that I was able to adapt pretty well to due to my playing style. It's a strong league and hope it can grow bigger."
Any person moving to a new country will surely find things difficult a first. Wanderson was no exception, he says:
"To be honest, the first shock was the language. I was only able to speak my mother language, Portuguese. It was a language and culture shock, giving maximum respect for the hierarchy where you must respect the elders and also the food even though I ate everything the beginning it was difficult because of that. I wasn’t able to communicate or express myself and the training was also a shock, here they train and run more, and they are also more intense in certain aspects. Respecting the elders is something that I learned from my beginnings but we learned a lot here and it’s a culture that I want to take with me and my family, I want my son to teach his son this culture because is a respectful culture and I want to take it for my entire life."
Wanderson signed for one year at Daejeon which took him into the summer of the following season with the club in K League 2. It was going well and Daejeon were in contention for the playoffs but a new contract never materialised.
"From what we talked with my agents there was an offer to renew the contract but I don’t know if it was a problem with the package I don’t really know but I wanted to stay and finish the season, was in a good form with Daejeon but the renewal never came and I ended up going to Jeju."
Since then, and whether it be in the tangerine of Jeju, the yellow and black of Jeonnam, or the red and black of Pohang, Wanderson is known as a player who always has a smile on his face. Has he always been this way?
"It’s a good question, when you do something you love and when you are in a place where people respect you, like you, and show admiration for you, it’s impossible to play without a smile and it’s impossible not to give your life for what you are doing. Since I’m a Christian, I believe in God and I’m always with Jesus, I think we need to transmit happiness regardless of the situation we might be in, therefore that happiness I will always bring with me when I’m playing or when I’m with the fans. It’s something very important and I will always be this happy guy who brings this happiness with himself everywhere."
Wanderson has played for a lot of teams in K League and also in a lot of different positions. But which is his favourite or most comfortable?
"I prefer to play as a winger. In Brazil I also played in both positions, winger and full back but the majority of the time I was a full back but here I prefer to play as a winger. I don’t feel any difficulty because I have past experiences in Brazil playing in a lot of positions that’s why I feel comfortable playing in different roles, I’m almost like a “joker.” Playing further back or further forward is indifferent to me but I prefer further forward since I’m closer to the goal."
There were plenty of examples, even, of Wanderson starting in defence for Daejeon and then being sent further forward if or when the Purples were chasing the game.
"At Daejeon the coach saw how quick I was, therefore we had a counterattack tactic to exploit my pace. Back in the day, we had great players like (Hwang) In-beom who last played for Olympiacos, I knew he would turn out to be a great player because he was excellent. So we had him in the midfield and the coach was always saying “You, stay upfront and wait for the counterattack, we are going to use your pace." That’s why I started matches as a defender and finished said matches as a striker when the match wasn’t going that well."
Wanderson has come up against lots of talented players since arriving in K League. Who has been the toughest?
"There is a lot, one who has gone to Bayern, if I’m not mistaken, I played against him, Kim Min-jae. As a defender there is a lot, it’s difficult to say even though I know the names. There is Moon Seon-min, a great player who's difficult to mark, Kim Shin-wook was also difficult to play against. As a forward, Kim Min-jae but also Osmar was a difficult player to get through when trying to dribble. It’s difficult to say but there were a lot of good players."
Wanderson is back at Pohang for a third spell having returned to the club last year. He's very happy to be back, he says:
"I’m happy, I’m also happy to be back at Pohang, the place that I left. We are in great form this year, we are involved in the fight even though Ulsan’s gap with the rest is big but if there is still a chance we will fight for it. We are also in the semi-final of the cup and now comes the Asian Champions League, therefore I’m very happy with the team’s form, with our players, and with our coaching staff. We have been doing great work and we are chasing big things, we want to win something this year."
What's changed since at the club, then, since 2017?
A lot of things changed, firstly the coach changed, he was the assistant coach but became the manager in 2019. The infrastructure also changed, we have a performance center now, we have three big pitches - everything's changed. The mentality also changed. Now the mentality is "We want to win something." Pohang was a good team but had a lot of time away from the first and second place and now we have been fighting for those places in the last couple of years. The mentality has changed a lot they want to win something and they are bringing players that also want to win something."
