Douglas Franco Texeira

15 June 2025

“I want to focus on training defenders in football”

“A great tournament, but I don’t have much time.”
Those are the first words heard from Douglas Franco Texeira, the former footballer better known as Douglas, now assistant coach for the upper youth levels at FC Twente. Fortunately, he did have time for a brief conversation in the sports hall.

Douglas was born in São Paulo and earned a contract at FC Twente through a Brazilian professional club. At Twente, after a fantastic season, he became Dutch champion in 2010 alongside players like Sander Boschker, Bryan Ruiz, Theo Janssen, Blaise Nkufo, and Wout Brama. After six seasons in Enschede, Douglas moved to Dynamo Moscow, where he played for two years.
“I really enjoyed my time in Enschede, but Moscow suited me better as a city. It’s comparable in size to São Paulo, the 20-million-inhabitant city where I grew up.”

After Moscow, Douglas played one season in Turkey at Trabzonspor and then spent two more years playing in Portugal with Sporting Lisbon.
After all these football adventures, Douglas has now been living back in Enschede for more than five years with his wife and three daughters. About this, Douglas says:
“My whole family lives in Brazil, and I would love to return to my home country, but my wife and daughters feel differently. I find it way too cold here—though today’s not too bad, actually.

So we’re staying here in Twente, and starting next season, I’ll be assistant coach at TVV in Enschede. I want to focus on training defenders in football; a sort of ‘last-line specialist.’ There are already plenty of striker coaches—so why not?”