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Wagner Lopes

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Wagner Lopes

Wagner Augusto Lopes (呂比須 ワグナー, Ropesu Wagunā; born 29 January 1969) is a football coach of Luverdense and former player who played as a forward.

Born in Brazil, Lopes is a naturalised Japanese citizen and represented their national team on 20 occasions. After retiring he took up coaching mainly working in both his home and footballing countries.

Lopes was born in Franca, São Paulo and represented São Paulo FC as a youth. In 1987, after two years as a senior, he moved to Japan and signed with Japan Soccer League club Nissan Motors. From 1988 to 1990, the club won all three major titles in Japan; Japan Soccer League, JSL Cup and Emperor's Cup two consecutive seasons.

Lopes moved to Hitachi (later Kashiwa Reysol) in 1990. In 1992, Japan Soccer League was folded and the club joined the new Japan Football League (JFL). The club won 2nd place in 1994 and secured promotion to the J1 League.

In 1994, after Kashiwa signed Müller, Lopes left the club. He joined JFL club Honda in 1995 where he was top scorer for two consecutive seasons (1995-1996). He moved to J1 League club Bellmare Hiratsuka in 1997, playing with Hidetoshi Nakata and scoring regularly. However, he left the club end of 1998 season due to financial strain and moved to Nagoya Grampus Eight, winning the 1999 Emperor's Cup.

Toward the end of his career, Lopes played for FC Tokyo (2001) and Avispa Fukuoka (2001–02). He retired at the end of the 2002 season.

In September 1997, Lopes obtained Japanese citizenship. Immediately after this, he was called up to the Japan national team for the 1998 World Cup qualifiers. On 28 September, he made his national team debut against South Korea.

Lopes went on to play six games and scored three goals to help Japan qualify for their first-ever FIFA World Cup. At the 1998 World Cup, he played all three matches, assisting Masashi Nakayama in Japan's first-ever World Cup goal against Jamaica. He also played at the 1999 Copa America and scored twice.

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