10 superstars who could have played for Brazil but didn’t

#8 Cacau (Germany)

Cacau played and scored for Germany at the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Cacau was born in Santo André, São Paulo in Brazil but he spent almost his entire professional career in Germany. He started with lower division team Türk Gücü München before switching to Bundesliga side 1. FC Nürnberg in 2001.

During his club career in Germany, he most notably spent eleven seasons with VfB Stuttgart scoring 109 goals in 346 games including 13 league goals in 2006/07 when Stuttgart won the league title. He had a brief stint in Japan with Cerezo Osaka in 2014 after which he returned to Stuttgart for a year to play for the reserve side before retiring.

Although he was born in Brazil, he was never called up to represent the Brazil national team because of the plethora of attacking talent the country had at that point. In February 2009, he became eligible to play for Germany as he acquired German passport having lived and played in Germany for over eight years.

He made his international debut in May 2009 and scored his first and second goals for the country a year later in a friendly against Malta. He represented Germany at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in which they finished third and scored a goal against Australia in a Group Stage game. By the time he retired, he scored six goals in 23 games for Germany.