Paulo Vinicius to leave Vidi at the end of this season

On the 12th August 2011, we announced on our website that the then 21-year-old Paulo Vinícius Souza dos Santos had joined our club from CA River Plate of Uruguay. He signed a long-term contract with our club, and his first contract with us was for 3 years, but he may not have thought that he would serve Vidi from the age of 21 to the age of 30, which means 9 years.

During this time he was able to celebrate the Hungarian championship title twice (in 2015 and 2018), the runners-up medal six times (2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020), a Hungarian Cup victory once (2019), and the Hungarian Cup silver medal (2015). There was also the Super Cup (2012) and the League Cup (2012).

He has played in a total of 196 NB I games, scoring 10 goals. He also played 37 matches in the Hungarian Cup and scored 3 times. In 2015, he scored a fantastic goal against Andráshida, and our fans chose this goal as the best Vidi goal of 2015.

He has played in 43 European games as a Vidi player, scoring three goals. He scored his most memorable goal in the domestic EL group match against Sporting in 2012, when we won 3-0, which was a huge surprise against the Portuguese star side. 

In 2017, he took the oath of Hungarian citizenship in Székesfehérvár, and soon after made his debut for the Hungarian national team in a World Cup qualifier against Portugal. He has been in the national team 7 times so far.

"I would like to thank everyone, my teammates, my coaches, the staff and the employees at the club, and of course the fans and the city for the past almost nine years. I will never forget the time we have spent here and the success we have achieved together," said Paulo Vinícius.

"We sat at the negotiating table with Vini for the first time last summer, but no agreement was reached, our defender decided to look for new challenges. There was no hard feeling about this and Vini was still considered a professional deputy team captain by the coaching staff. After that, unfortunately, he was seriously injured but we supported him in his recovery and he managed to return to action. The coronavirus halt to the season and taking into account all the factors, our player received another contract offer, but he finally indicated that he would not accept it, so he will leave as a free player on the 30th June. Vini is one of the key players in the club’s history. We will always be happy to see him at the Sóstó in the future and wish him the best in his continued playing career." - commented Zoltan Kovacs - director of football. 

We would like to thank Paulo again for all he has done for our club both on and off the pitch over the last 9 years. We wish him much more success in his career and private life!