Douglas Costa is a Brazilian winger who has played European giants Juventus and Bayern Munich but is currently without a club after leaving LA Galaxy in 2023.

Costa came through the youth system at Gremio in Brazil and then moved to Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk.

While on the books of Shakhtar, he rose to prominence as he played a major role in the team winning five league titles in a row.

From there, he moved to Bayern Munich in 2015. A loan deal to Juventus was turned permanent in 2018 and he has since returned to his roots with a loan back to Gremio in 2021.

Costa is known as a master playmaker and a tricky player to stop and has played for high-profile managers including Carlo Ancelotti, Pep Guardiola and Max Allegri.

Injuries have blighted Costa's career, but he managed to secure a move to the MLS with LA Galaxy in 2022.

 

Career at Bayern Munich

After winning eleven trophies at Shakhtar Donetsk between 2010 and 2014, Costa became hot property.

Costa signed for Bayern Munich ahead of the 2015/16 season, with the transfer announced on July 1, 2015. At the time, Bayern were coached by Pep Guardiola. He signed a five-year contract with the German giants.

Costa quickly became a key playmaker in the Bundesliga and picked up a remarkable 12 assists in his first 13 games for Bayern.

After sustaining a muscle injury, he struggled to regain that electrifying level of performance in the later stages of the season.

Costa finished 2015/16 with seven goals and 18 assists in 43 matches across all competitions. However, when Ancelotti replaced Guardiola, he fell out of favour, with Franck Ribery preferred.

Costa's relationship with the Bayern hierarchy soured somewhat during the 2016/17 season, exacerbated by a war of words with club president Uli Hoeness.

"Costa didn't work out because he was quite a mercenary whose character we didn't like," Hoeness told Frankenpost after Costa left Bayern to spend the 2017/18 season on loan at Juventus. That move would later be made permanent.

As Hoeness saw it, the issue between him and Costa was rooted in Costa's demands that Bayern Munich pay him more money than they were willing to.

Costa, by contrast, claims he did not leave Bayern for money, but rather sporting reasons.

Few would have envisioned then that Costa would return to Bayern on loan from Juventus three years later. According to quotes attributed to Costa, the issues between he and Hoeness during the winger's first spell did not cause long-term animosity between the duo.

Despite his difficulties at Bayern during the 2016/17 season, Costa was part of a squad that won the Bundesliga title again under the guidance of Ancelotti.

 

Juventus years

Under Massimiliano Allegri, Juventus were dominating Italy in similar fashion to Bayern Munich's maintenance of supremacy within Germany. However, neither Juve nor Bayern was managing to usurp Europe's elite.

Costa rediscovered his creative spark during his loan spell at Juventus and helped them to the Serie A and Coppa Italia titles.

Although they were knocked out of the UEFA Champions League in the quarter-finals by eventual champions Real Madrid, Costa did enough to secure a permanent move.

Life became more difficult at Juve for Costa following the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo in 2018. Competition within the squad meant it was difficult to stake his claim for a starting spot.

Injuries had already done enough damage to Costa's career and now he had another challenge to contend with.

In September 2018, there was more trouble as Costa was handed a four-game ban for spitting at Sassuolo's Federico Di Francesco.

"I would like to apologise to all the Juventus fans for my wrong reaction during today's game," wrote Costa on Instagram following the incident. "I also apologise to my teammates, who are always by my side, in good and bad times. It was ugly, I am aware of that and I apologise to everyone for that.

"I want to make clear that this isolated conduct has nothing to do with what I've shown throughout my career."

Allegri departed at the end of 2018/19 despite Juve's Serie A triumph and Costa came under the tutelage of Maurizio Sarri for 2019/20. He found life under the former Napoli boss frustrating in terms of playing time, with injuries playing a major role in his lack of minutes.

Costa started only seven Serie A games all season and came off the bench in 16. Sarri was not the most popular of Juve head coaches, but he did lead the Bianconeri to the Scudetto crown and Costa had his third in a row.

With playing time significantly reduced in 2018/19 and in 2019/20, Costa took a loan move back to Bayern in 2020, but with that too not able to reignite his career, the Brazilian was loaned back to his native country to Gremio, where spent the 2021/22 season.

After a half season at Gremio, he joined MLS side LA Galaxy in Feb 2022 on loan, before making the move permanent for the 2023 season.

He made 51 appearances for Galaxy and scored eight goals before he left the club at the end of the campaign.

 

International career with Brazil

Costa's international career showed promise from a young age as he won the Under-20 South American Championship with Brazil in 2009.

The playmaker earned his first call-up to the Brazil senior national team in November 2014, with Dunga the newly reappointed coach following the embarrassment of the 2014 World Cup under Luiz Felipe Scolari.

 

Costa made his international debut against Turkey in Istanbul and has since appeared fairly regularly for the Selecao. Nevertheless, due to stiff competition for positions and injuries along the way, Costa has arguably failed to reach his full potential in national team colours.

The winger represented Brazil at the 2015 Copa America tournament and the 2018 World Cup.

However, he missed out on the 2016 Copa America Centenario through injury and the 2019 Copa America due to being overlooked by national team boss Tite. Brazil won the tournament in 2019.

 

Personal life

Costa is in a relationship with Nathalia Felix.

 

Net worth

Douglas Costa's net worth is reportedly around £58million.