Rodrigo Alves Soares (born 26 December 1992) is a Brazilian professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who plays as a

right back In the sport of association football, a defender is an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categ ...

for Novorizontino.

Club career

Early career

Born on 26 December 1992 in

Porangatu Porangatu is a town in Goiás state, Brazil. Geography Parangatu is in its own microregion, Porangatu Microregion, of 226,766 inhabitants in an area of 35.287 km2; 426 km from the state capital, Goiânia. This microregion serves as a nu ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, Rodrigo Alves Soares played football from a young age. He was introduced to professional football at the age of 20, at

União São João União is the Portuguese word for Union. It may refer to: *the Brazilian federal government *União do Vegetal, a church known for its usage of Hoasca as tea * Brazilian frigate ''União'' (F45), a general-purpose ''Niterói'' class frigate launc ...

. He joined

Santo André Santo ('saint' in various languages) may refer to: People * Santo (given name) * Santo (surname) * El Santo, Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta (1917–1984), Mexican wrestler and actor * Bob Santo or Santo, stage name of Ghanaian comedian John Evans Kwad ...

for a while, before signing for Grêmio Anápolis. With 14 matches and 1 goal in 2014–15, he moved to play in Europe. He moved to

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

and played for their B team for two seasons. In 2017, he was loaned to Chaves for half a season, recording his first appearances in

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (), also known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Portugal and the highest level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga ...

. In the following season, Rodrigo was on the lookout for a top-tier team that would grant him opportunities to show his worth.

Desportivo das Aves Clube Desportivo das Aves (), commonly known as Desportivo das Aves, or simply as Aves, was a Portuguese football club based in Vila das Aves, Santo Tirso. The club was founded on 12 November 1930 and plays at the Estádio do Clube Desportivo ...

gave him this chance.

C.D. Aves

In his first season at

, Rodrigo conjured up 1 goal and 2 assists in 33 encounters and contributed to his club's first ever silverware, the

Taça de Portugal The Taça de Portugal (; ) is an annual association football competition and the premier knockout tournament in Portuguese football. For sponsorship reasons, it has been known as Taça de Portugal Generali Tranquilidade since the 2024–25 seaso ...

. The Brazilian had made his first step, but would definitely stand out in 2018–19. He played in 41 matches, scored 4 goals, delivered 9 assists, got the award for

best full-back of the season and earned numerous awards on European level as well. His excellent season attracted interest from

and Sporting, but he ended up at

PAOK PAOK (, Πανθεσσαλονίκειος Αθλητικός Όμιλος Κωνσταντινοπολιτών, ''Panthessalonikeios Athlitikós Ómilos Constantinopoliton'', ''Pan-Thessalonian Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans''), commonly ...

PAOK

He signed a three year contract with Greek champions

for an undisclosed fee. A free agent after his contract with Desportivo Aves reached its completion, the 26-year-old defender initially held negotiations with

AEK Athens A.E.K. (; Athlitikí Énosis Konstantinoupόleos, ''Athletic Union of Constantinople'') is a major Greek multi-sport club based in Nea Filadelfeia, Attica. The club is more commonly known in European competitions as A.E.K. Athens. Establishe ...

, but he subsequently spoke with PAOK and made the decision to join the Thessaloniki-based club. After a good season in 2021-22 campaign and the departure of Matos, Rodrigo become a first team player under Pablo Garcia and won another title in his career. In

Cup A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, pol ...

final PAOK faced

Olympiacos Olympiacós Sýndesmos Filáthlon Peiraiós (, Olympic Association of Fans of Piraeus) is a major multi-sport club based in Piraeus, Greece. Olympiacos is parent to a number of different competitive departments which participate in football, ...

and won 2–1. In the last year in his contract and PAOK, in January 2022, decided to release Rodrigo under new technical director Jose Boto. He made 64 appearances across all competitions for PAOK and scored 1 goal against Lamia FC.

Return to Brazil

In January 2022 Rodrigo signed a deal with Juventude for one year. Then in January 2023 he moved to

Atlético Goianiense Atlético, Spanish for ''athletics'', or Athletico in English, may refer to: Sports Teams Athletico *Athletico SC (Lebanon), a Lebanese football academy *Athletic Bilbao, or Atletico Bilbao, Basque students athletic club (also forming Athletic Cl ...

. After a year there he moved to Novorizontino.

Career statistics

Club

Honours

Club

;Porto B *

LigaPro The Liga Portugal 2 (), also known as Liga Portugal Meu Super for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division of the Portuguese football league system. At the end of each season, the two top-finishing teams are promoted to the top-tier ...

: 2015–16 ;C.D. Aves *

: 2017–18 ;PAOK *

Greek Cup The Greek Football Cup (), commonly known as the Greek Cup or Betsson Greek Cup for sponsorship reasons is a Greek football competition, run by the Hellenic Football Federation. The Greek Cup is the second-most important domestic men's footba ...

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

Individual *

Defender of the Month: April 2019

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soares, Rodrigo 1992 births Living people Brazilian men's footballers Men's association football defenders União São João Esporte Clube players Esporte Clube Santo André players FC Porto B players Brazilian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal Expatriate men's footballers in Greece Liga Portugal 2 players Super League Greece players Campeonato Brasileiro Série A players Campeonato Brasileiro Série B players G.D. Chaves players Primeira Liga players C.D. Aves players PAOK FC players Esporte Clube Juventude players Atlético Clube Goianiense players Grêmio Novorizontino players 21st-century Brazilian sportsmen Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Portugal