BRAZIL

Rafaelle Souza

32| Defender|77 caps |8 goals

Intro

Rafaelle Souza is set to captain Brazil's team in this summer's Olympics after she led them in the 2023 World Cup. Souza has massive shoes to fill as she steps in for the famous Marta, who is Brazil's all-time leading scorer among both women and men. As a defender, Souza won't match Marta's prolific scoring, but her twelve years on the Brazilian team gives her more than enough experience and know-how to take her team far. She cites Marta as her idol, as the older player showed her that there was a path to incredible success in women's soccer. She is now teammates with Marta both for Brazil and on the Orlando Pride club team. Souza grew up playing barefoot in the streets of Cipo in Northeast Brazil, and now she looks ahead to bring a medal home in the 2024 Olympics.

International Career

Souza began playing for Brazil in their youth teams in 2008. She began her senior career in December 2011 as a substitute, and started her first international game against Canada in March 2012. Souza helped her team through the first three matches of the 2015 World Cup, which Brazil won without conceding a goal. She then captained the team through the 2022 Copa America, in which Brazil took the championship without being scored on through the entire tournament. Brazil faced an early exit in 2023 when the iconic Marta was sidelined with a knee injury, but the famous player has indicated that while 2023 was her final World Cup, she may yet play in the Olympics. Souza faces pressure from her football-obsessed country to lead Brazil in taking on the rest of the world. Already, Souza was named to the Best XI for the 2024 CONCACAF W Gold Cup.

Club career

Souza played for the University of Mississippi in college, where she scored 44 goals in 61 games. She played for one season at the Houston Dash, after which she briefly considered quitting soccer altogether to pursue the civil engineering degree she earned at Ole Miss, as she feared that she could not earn enough as a women's soccer player back in Brazil. However, the Chinese Women's Super League signed her in 2016, in which she said she could earn considerably more. Souza became the first female Brazilian to play for Arsenal in 2022, and she helped the team receive the Professional Footballer's Association Team of the Year award. She then joined Orlando Pride in 2023 after the World Cup, signing a two-and-a-half year contract.

"We owe what we have today to those who fought for it in the past. My role as a leader is not just to give a good example to the kids who watch us on TV. I also want to inspire the younger players, get them to respect what came before."

-Souza in the run-up to the 2023 World Cup. She captained Brazil to their fourth consecutive win of the Copa America the year before, beating out Colombia in the final.

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