Igor Julio dos Santos de Paulo (born 7 February 1998), known as Igor Julio or simply Igor, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

for club Brighton & Hove Albion.

Career

Born in

Bom Sucesso, Minas Gerais Bom Sucesso is a municipality in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the cou ...

, Igor joined Red Bull Brasil's youth setup from Portuguesa Santista. In July 2016, after impressing with the under-20 side, he moved abroad and joined

Austrian Bundesliga The Austrian Football Bundesliga (german: Österreichische Fußball-Bundesliga, italic=no , "Austrian Football Federal League"), also known as Admiral Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Austrian football league system. Th ...

side

FC Red Bull Salzburg FC Red Bull Salzburg is an Austrian professional football club based in Wals-Siezenheim, that competes in the Austrian Bundesliga, the top flight of Austrian Football. Their home ground is the Red Bull Arena. Due to sponsorship restrictions, ...

, being initially assigned to the reserve team. Igor made his professional debut for Liefering on 22 July 2016, starting in a 1–0 Austrian First League home win against

SV Horn SV Horn is an Austrian association football club playing in the city of Horn. The club plays in the Austrian Second League. The team was champion of the Landesliga Niederösterreich in 1991, 1998 and 2007. In 2008, SV Horn won the Austrian C ...

. After being a regular starter, he made his first team debut the following 28 May, playing the full 90 minutes in a 1–0 home defeat of SC Rheindorf Altach. Igor was promoted to Red Bull Salzburg's main squad on 26 May 2017, but continued to appear mainly with the B-team. On 7 January 2018, he was loaned to fellow top tier club Wolfsberger AC, until June. On 2 July 2018, Igor moved to

Austria Wien Fußballklub Austria Wien AG (; known in English as Austria Vienna, and usually shortened to Austria (German: Österreich) in German-speaking countries, is an Austrian association football club from the capital city of Vienna. It has won the mos ...

also in the first division, on a season-long loan deal. On 26 June 2019, Igor signed to Italian Serie A club SPAL a contract until 2023. On 31 January 2020, Igor joined Fiorentina on a two-year loan with an obligation to buy. On 26 July 2023, Premier League side Brighton & Hove Albion announced the signing of Igor on a four-year deal, for a reported fee of €17 million. Igor made his Brighton debut on 8 October 2023, playing sixty-three minutes in a 2–2 home draw against Liverpool in the Premier League.

Career statistics

Honours

Fiorentina * Coppa Italia runner-up:

2022–23 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 b ...

* UEFA Europa Conference League runner-up:

References

External links

Profile
at the ACF Fiorentina website * {{DEFAULTSORT:Igor Julio dos Santos de Paulo 1998 births Living people Footballers from Minas Gerais Brazilian men's footballers Men's association football defenders Austrian Football Bundesliga players 2. Liga (Austria) players Serie A players Premier League players Red Bull Bragantino II players FC Liefering players FC Red Bull Salzburg players Wolfsberger AC players FK Austria Wien players SPAL players ACF Fiorentina players Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players Brazilian expatriate men's footballers Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Austria Expatriate men's footballers in Austria Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Italy Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate men's footballers in England