Démosthenes Magalhães

Démosthenes Magalhães, in Brazil better known as Démosthenes and in Italy as Demostene Bertini (born 17 November 1909, date of death unknown), was a Brazilian association football player. He was born in Rio de Janeiro.

Démosthenes Magalhães, association football player of the 1930s (Fluminense FC, Torino FC, UC Sampdoria)

In 1931 Démosthenes succeeded Fernando Giudicelli - who went on to play for FC Torino, being one of the first Brazilian footballers pursuing a career as professional in Europe - in the mid-field of Fluminense FC in Rio de Janeiro.

On a visit to Rio in 1932 Giudicelli convinced Démosthenes to join him on the way back to Italy to play professionally too. As those days only people with Italian background, so-called Oriundi, were permitted to do so he changed his name to the more Italian sounding Demostene Bertini.[1]

Thus, in the season 1932/33 he played together with Giudicelli in Turin. The technically gifted player had an excellent start, but soon run into difficulties with regards to defending his claim to Italian origin, which caused him to be sidelined for some time. After this, he found it difficult to live up to his potential, and frequently was left out of the starting line-up. Until the end of the season 1933/34 he run up 30 matches for Torino which finished 7th and 12th in those years. After that he was transferred to Sampierdarenese of Genova where he became part of their standard line-up and played in 28 league matches, finishing the season 13th.

In 1936 he took part in a friendly match of Fluminense, for which he thus played in total 39 times.

References

Estatísticas Fluminense
Bertini Demostene, www.enciclopediadelcalcio.it
Bertini Demostene, Wikicalcio

Mário Filho: O negro no futebol brasileiro, 1947, p. 183. Filho used Démosthenes as an example, that Brazilian players would rather give up their names than their nationality. Fausto dos Santos and Jaguaré Bezerra de Vasconcelos only a few years before rather abandoned a well remunerated engagement with FC Barcelona, than to give in on demands for their naturalisation.

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[1] Mário Filho: O negro no futebol brasileiro, 1947, p. 183. Filho used Démosthenes as an example, that Brazilian players would rather give up their names than their nationality. Fausto dos Santos and Jaguaré Bezerra de Vasconcelos only a few years before rather abandoned a well remunerated engagement with FC Barcelona, than to give in on demands for their naturalisation.