Real Madrid coach spelling

[LordyGeordie]

I'm not sure if this is the right category for this question but I'll give it a go...

I've seen several different ways of spelling the name of the Real Madrid coach in differnet newspapers. Wanderley Luxemburgo and Vanderlei Luxemburgo seem to be the most popular.

Often when there are spelling variations of a player's name it is because it has been translated from a different alphabet (eastern european, chinese, japanese, arabiann etc), where there is no direct translation of a particular letter and it is left to personal preference

However, Luxemburgo is Brazilian, and Brazil to the best of my knowledge uses the same alphabet as we do. Therefore you would have thought there would be only one spelling of his name.

Why therefore are there difffernet variations?

[smorodina]

Maybe it's because different languages assign different sounds to the same letters of the alphabet. For example, in German the letter W is pronounced similar to our letter V, and their V similar to our F. There are similar differences in the romance languages, so perhaps it's an attempt to reproduce the correct pronuncation of the name?

[Peter Pedant]

When someone asked Sam Johnson why he had defined a pastern as a horse's ankle, instead of its knee, he replied,

Sheer ignorance, ma'am

I think we have another case here.

[greenday]

There is a very good reason for this, and it was covered in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago. Luxemburgo (as it is probably easiest to call him) is a notoriously colourful/interesting/dodgy character. He has been investigated in relation to corruption in Brazilian football, but I can't remember if he was found guilty or not (I suspect not). He was accused of picking players because of who they were sponsored by when he was Brazil coach, the suggestion being that Nike, who manufactured the kit for the team, put 'pressure' on him to select players sponsored by that firm.

 

Anyway, the whole name thing is to do with what he did in the 1970's. He played for Brazil at under-23 level when he was overage, so the simplest way of fiddling the system was to change his name. Rather than come up with a whole new name he simply changed the spelling of his first name. I can't remember which was his original name (I think it was Vanderlai but not 100% sure) but when there was a government investigation into corruption in football in Brazil and he was called in as a witness there was a big anticipation as to how he would sign his name. He signed it as it was originally, thus giving the game away about his dishonesty over his age when playing at under-23 level. I don't think he got into any bother over it though as it was about 30years ago.