Wellington Luís de Sousa

Wellington "Tanque" — and yes, that nickname means Tank in Portuguese — is honestly one of those players who embodies exactly what football romantics love about the Brazilian pipeline to Japan. Born in Ourinhos in São Paulo state in 1988, he carved out a career that eventually landed him in J1 League football with Avispa Fukuoka, which is no small thing when you consider how competitive that pathway is. The "Tanque" handle tells you everything about his style before you've watched a single minute: a big, powerful striker at 186 cm who runs through defenders rather than around them. Brazilian football produces so many talented forwards that plenty of genuinely good players get lost in the shuffle, but Wellington found his footing and kept going. There's something I genuinely respect about that kind of career — not headlines, just consistent, physical, committed football on the other side of the world.

Name (English)

Wellington Luís de Sousa

Name (Japanese)

ウェリントン・ルイス・デ・ソウザ

Reading

うぇりんとん・るいす・で・そうざ

Born

February 11, 1988 (age 38)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Dragon

Origin

Ourinhos, São Paulo, Brazil

Height

186 cm

Occupation

association football player

• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/wellington_tanque/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington%20(footballer%2C%20born%201988)
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A7%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%88%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AB%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B9%E3%83%BB%E3%83%87%E3%83%BB%E3%82%BD%E3%82%A6%E3%82%B6
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1383449

Tags

• São Paulo
• association football player

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.