Leonardo Pereira

Curitiba raised Léo Pereira before Paraná's Atlético took him into its academy in 2014, and the club shaped his early career through a series of loans. Náutico borrowed him for the 2016–17 season, and Orlando City took him to Major League Soccer for 2017–18, giving him a taste of football outside Brazil before he returned to Atlético Paranaense to establish himself.

The move to Flamengo turned him into a fixture of one of Brazil's most decorated dressing rooms. He has collected the Rio de Janeiro state championship in five separate years, added the Copa do Brasil, a Brazilian Super Cup and the Recopa Sudamericana, and twice been part of a Flamengo side crowned national champion. The clearest measure of what he brought defensively came in 2022, when Flamengo beat his old club Atlético Paranaense 1–0 in the final of the Copa Libertadores, South America's premier club competition.

Recognition followed the trophies. In 2025, ESPN's Bola de Prata named him among Brazil's best defenders, an acknowledgement of consistent performances at the back for a club competing on every front. A senior call-up to the Brazil national team arrived only in 2026, with his debut coming against France on 26 March; by June he had four caps, still searching for his first international goal.

Little in his career reads as a straight line — loans in Recife and Florida, a homecoming to Paraná, then a switch to Flamengo that turned him into a title winner and, eventually, a senior international. Léo Pereira now wears the number 4 shirt in defence for a club that has come to expect silverware, with the national team a newer and still-developing chapter.