Victor Alexander da Silva

Vitinho's career started with a leap of faith few youth players get to make: after a single senior appearance for Cruzeiro, a substitute cameo against Atlético Mineiro that ended in defeat, the club sold him straight to Belgian side Cercle Brugge for a fee of around €2.35 million. He was not part of Cruzeiro's Copa do Brasil-winning squad's matchday involvement despite being registered with the group, and the transfer itself later resurfaced in Brazil as part of a corruption investigation, with allegations that part of the fee had been diverted to club officials. In Belgium, Vitinho quietly built the case for a return to bigger stages, making 75 appearances across five years and scoring twice. Burnley took him to England in 2022, and it was there that his profile changed: two goals became four in 70 league appearances, a Championship title arrived in his first season, and by September 2023 the club had extended his contract through 2027, a vote of confidence that made the move back to Brazil the following year all the more striking. That move, to Botafogo in August 2024, turned Vitinho into the most expensive defender in Brazilian football for the 2014–2024 decade in fixed-fee terms, with a deal worth up to €10 million including bonuses. The investment paid off quickly: within his first year at the club he won both the Copa Libertadores and the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A. Internationally, after representing Brazil's under-20 side in 2019, he earned his first senior caps in 2025, closing a decade-long arc from a single unused matchday at Cruzeiro to full internationals for his country.