Jorge Dubanced

Jorge Roberto Dubanced Conversano was born on 28 June 1950 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He joined the youth divisions of Defensores de Belgrano, the Buenos Aires club where he began his career, and made his debut for its first team in 1967 at the age of 18. Little has been published about his family background.

Dubanced played as a centre forward. After his start at Defensores de Belgrano he spent the 1969 season with Argentinos Juniors and 1970 with Deportivo Morón, then returned to Defensores de Belgrano in 1971. The club transferred him to Lusitano in South Africa, where he played in 1972.

In the middle of the 1973 season he crossed to Chile to join Santiago Wanderers of Valparaíso, a club then struggling against relegation. He made his debut in a 1-0 defeat by Universidad Católica, but went on to score 11 goals in his first 14 matches, and the team finished in mid-table. He later recalled a hat-trick against Unión Española in a celebrated 4-4 draw at Playa Ancha, goals in the 1973 qualifying mini-league for the Copa Libertadores, and a first-time finish against Universidad de Chile at the Estadio Nacional. The big clubs of Santiago tried to sign him at the end of 1973, but Wanderers kept him for another season. In 1974 he scored 12 goals and was one of the leaders of the side that reached the final of the Copa Chile, lost 3-0 to Colo-Colo.

Colo-Colo signed him for 1975, though he scored only a few goals there. In 1976 he played for Deportes Concepción and then moved to Atlético Bucaramanga in Colombia. He was registered with Talleres de Córdoba in 1977, then played for Villa Dálmine (1978), Deportivo Municipal in Peru (1979) and San Martín de Tucumán (1980), and finished his playing career in 1981 at Excursionistas, the traditional rival of Defensores de Belgrano.

As a coach, Dubanced managed Excursionistas in 1995 and 1996, San Miguel, and Platense in Honduras. He was one of the coaches of Estudiantes de Buenos Aires during the 1999 to 2000 season, when the club won promotion to the Primera B Nacional, and in 2001 he was an assistant at Platense in Argentina. He returned to Chile in 2005 for a short spell in charge of Provincial Osorno, coached Gimnasia y Esgrima de Mendoza in 2007 and was an assistant at Deportivo Morón in 2008.

Dubanced was known throughout his career for his long hair and thick moustache, which earned him the nickname "Bigote"; reports noted that he kept the moustache to the end of his life. Friends and former clubs also called him "Duba". He returned to Valparaíso many times to visit friends from his playing years, and in a 2012 interview at the old stadium in Playa Ancha he said that coaching Santiago Wanderers had always been his dream, and that above all he wanted to keep coming to watch the club win. Details of his family life have not been widely reported.

Jorge Dubanced died on Thursday 15 October 2026, aged 76. His death was confirmed by Club Atlético Estudiantes of Caseros, where he had been one of the coaches in the 1999 to 2000 promotion season. The club wrote that it lamented his death with deep sorrow, accompanied his family and loved ones, and ended its message "Hasta siempre, Duba". The news was reported in Argentina by Vermouth Deportivo and in Chile by ADN Radio and RedGol, which described sorrow in Valparaíso. The cause of death and the place of death were not made public.

Dubanced spent only a season and a half at Santiago Wanderers, but his goals helped save the club from relegation in 1973 and took it to the 1974 Copa Chile final, and he remained a cult figure among the club's supporters. Writers on Chilean football history recalled his flowing hair, moustache, tight shorts and green number 9 shirt as an image fixed in the memory of older fans, and his hat-trick against Unión Española became part of Wanderers folklore. His long career, across clubs in Argentina, South Africa, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Honduras, also reflected the wandering path of many South American players and coaches of his generation.