Matheus Soares

Matheus Soares has spent almost his entire footballing life inside a single club. He joined Athletico Paranaense's youth academy in June 2021, still a teenager from Rio Verde, and worked his way up through the ranks rather than arriving as an outside signing. By April 2023 he had been promoted to the first-team squad, a step that put him on the goalkeeping ladder at senior level well before he had a senior debut to his name.

That debut came on 28 July 2024, away to Cuiabá at the Arena Pantanal, in a match Athletico won 2-1. It marked the point where years of academy development turned into first-team minutes, even if those minutes have remained occasional since. Soares currently sits as a squad goalkeeper, involved in Athletico's Série A campaign without being the established starter.

Where his contribution shows up most clearly is in the club's recent trophy history: he has been part of Athletico's squad for back-to-back Campeonato Paranaense titles, in 2023 and 2024. There is no record of him having been called into Brazil's national team set-up at any level, so his story so far is one written entirely in Curitiba.

At 190cm, he offers Athletico a physically imposing option between the posts, and he is left-footed, a detail that occasionally shapes how a goalkeeper builds play from the back. His contract at the club runs to the end of 2029, tying his development to Athletico for the foreseeable future.