Matheus Nascimento de Paula

Matheus Nascimento made his mark at Botafogo before he had turned seventeen: on 5 September 2020, aged 16 years and six months, he came on against Corinthians in the Campeonato Brasileiro and became the youngest player ever to appear for the club. It was the culmination of a rise that had started years earlier at Trops, before Botafogo signed him in 2015 and watched him score more than 150 goals through the youth categories.

The debut turned him into one of the most closely watched teenagers in Brazilian football. His contract carried a release clause of R$150 million for domestic sides and €50 million for anyone abroad, and in 2020 The Guardian placed him on its list of the world's sixty best young talents. He went on to collect a full trophy cabinet in Rio de Janeiro, winning the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A and the Copa Libertadores in 2024, the Série B title in 2021, and the Taça Rio in both 2023 and 2024.

With Brazil's youth sides he was just as decorated, winning the South American Under-15 Championship in 2019, playing at the Under-20 World Cup in 2023, and taking gold at the Pan American Games with the Under-23 team that same year.

A loan to LA Galaxy followed in February 2025, where he made 38 appearances and scored seven goals, though the American club chose not to make the move permanent. Nascimento's path led back to Brazil in July 2026, when Grêmio signed him outright in a deal settled through a debt Botafogo owed the club from an earlier transfer, with Botafogo keeping a sell-on percentage in his future.