Dani Alves: Record-setting footballer convicted of rape

He was found guilty of raping a young woman at a Barcelona nightclub in December 2022 and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison by a Spanish court on Thursday. Between his debut for Esporte Clube Bahia in Brazil aged 18 in 2001 and his last game for the Pumas in January 2023 aged 39, Alves played almost 1,000 competitive games for club and country, accumulating trophies.

"I have the greatest list of honours in the history of soccer, with 43 titles. If someone overtakes me, I'll play until I'm 50," he said in June 2022. His clubs included Barcelona, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain. They coveted Alves because he was, for a long time, one of the best full-backs in the world.

"You have to leave egos aside because if you let them emerge, you stop thinking about being happy," he told AFP. "In life, you don't need to be right, you need to be happy. And I'm very happy!" He came from a poor family in Juazeiro in Bahia State. At the age of ten, he got up at five in the morning with his brother to help his father in the fields, before heading to school.

He made his debut for his local club but was immediately spotted by Sevilla and moved to Spain in 2002. He spent six seasons with Sevilla, where he won two UEFA Cups, a Copa del Rey and a UEFA Super Cup. Barcelona then bought Alves for 35 million euros.

In his eight-season first spell at Barcelona between 2008 and 2016, Alves won 23 trophies: three Champions Leagues, three Club World Cups, six La Liga titles and four Copas del Rey as well as various Super Cups.

In 2016, he left Barcelona as a free agent for Juventus where he stayed one season, enough time to add a Serie A title and an Italian Cup to his collection and also reach another Champions final, a defeat to old enemy