Nathan Júnior Soares de Carvalho (born 10 March 1989) 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 striker for

FC Telavi FC Telavi ''( Georgian:'' საფეხბურთო კლუბი თელავი) is a Georgian professional football club based in the city of Telavi, Kakheti. The team competes in the Erovnuli Liga, the first tier of the national le ...

in Georgia.

Club career

Early career

Born in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

, as a teenager Nathan Júnior played for his local club

Clube de Regatas do Flamengo Clube de Regatas do Flamengo (; ), more commonly referred to as simply Flamengo, is a Brazilian multi sports club based in Rio de Janeiro, in the neighborhood of Gávea. It was founded and named after the Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Flamengo n ...

and was a member of the club's system. At the age of 16 he tried to get into the first team unsuccessfully and a year later got an offer to join

Anorthosis Famagusta Anorthosis Famagusta (), commonly known as Anorthosis in English or Anorthosi in Greek, is a Cypriot football club, part of the Famagusta multi-sport club founded in 1911 in Varosha, Famagusta.

academy in Cyprus, which was accepted by the player, and in July 2005 he joined the Cypriot side, spending the next three seasons there.

Skonto Riga

With the help of former

player and Latvian international

Marians Pahars Marians Pahars (born 5 August 1976) is a Latvian professional football manager and a former player. As a player, he spent the majority of his career operating as a striker for English club Southampton, where he played in the Premier League an ...

Júnior was taken on trial at

Skonto Riga Skonto FC was a Latvian professional football club, active from 1991 until 2016. The club played at the Skonto Stadium in Riga. Skonto won the Virsliga in the first 14 seasons of the league's resumption (15 in total), and often provided the cor ...

in July 2008. He signed a four-year contract as the trial was successful. Right after joining Júnior found it difficult to fit into the squad, as there were many experienced players, and was soon loaned out to Olimps/RFS. He played 15 matches that season and was mainly used in the right-back position. In December 2008 Júnior returned to Skonto Riga and was mainly used as a late game substitute by that time club's manager

Paul Ashworth Paul Anthony Ashworth (born 29 September 1969) is an English football manager and former player. Ashworth had previously played at youth level for Norwich City before setting up PASS Soccer Schools, a national company. He later worked for Cam ...

. In 2009 Skonto had a lack of forwards as two of them left right before the start of the season, and Júnior was tried out as a forward. He scored twice on his new position debut against Jūrmala-VV, and later on remained in that position. He played 19 games and scored 5 goals in the 2009 season, and was notified as a forward in the squad for the 2010 season. He made a big surprise in the upcoming season, scoring 18 goals in 24 league matches and sharing the top-scorer's honour with Liepājas Metalurgs striker

Deniss Rakels Deniss Rakeļs (born 20 August 1992) is a Latvian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Polish club Zagłębie Sosnowiec. Club career Early career in Latvia Rakels started his youth career in his local club Jēkabpils RSS, later o ...

, who had also netted 18 times respectively. In 2010 Skonto became the champions of Latvia. After the impressive season Júnior went on trials with

Maccabi Haifa Maccabi Haifa () is one of the biggest sports clubs in Israel and a part of the Maccabi association. It runs several sports clubs and teams in Haifa which have competed in a variety of sports over the years, such as Football, Basketball, Weightl ...

in Israel,

Dynamo Moscow MGO VFSO "Dynamo" (), commonly known as Dynamo Moscow (), is a Russian sports club based in Moscow. Founded by Felix Dzerzhinsky on 18 April 1923, Dynamo Moscow was the first institution created from the All-Union Dynamo Sports Club. Dynamo Mosco ...

in Russia and

Energie Cottbus FC Energie Cottbus (Lower Sorbian: ''Energija Chóśebuz'') is a Football in Germany, German football club based in Cottbus, Brandenburg. It was founded in 1963 as SC Cottbus in what was East Germany. After the German reunification, reunificatio ...

in Germany, but didn't settle there. At the start of 2011 season Júnior suffered an injury and didn't appear in the first league matches of the season. Despite lack of gaming practice, he showed his ability right after being declared fit, and soon became the leading scorer of the league yet again. He was named the league's best player in July 2011. Although, Skonto had a poor season and finished only in the 4th place of the

Latvian Higher League Latvian Higher League or Virslīga, also known as TonyBet Virslīga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Latvia and the highest level of the Latvian football league system. Organised by the Latvian Footbal ...

, Júnior became the league's top scorer with 22 goals in 26 games. After the season, he was included in the LFF and ''sportacentrs.com'' teams of the tournament and was also named the best forward of the season.

Kapfenberger SV

At the end of 2011 Júnior went on trial with the

Austrian Bundesliga The Bundesliga ( , "Federal League"), also known as Admiral Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Austria and the highest level of the Austrian football league system. The competition decides the A ...

club

Kapfenberger SV Kapfenberger SV is an Austrian association football club from Kapfenberg, Styria. They won the 2007–08 Austrian Football First League and were promoted to the Austrian Bundesliga. The club was founded in 1919 as ''Kapfenberger SC''. The nam ...

and signed a contract with them in January 2012.

Tokushima Vortis

On 31 January 2018,

Tokushima Vortis is a Japanese professional football club located in Tokushima, capital of Tokushima Prefecture. The club currently playing in the J2 League, the Japanese second tier of professional football league. Name origin The name, "Vortis" was named in 19 ...

announced the signing of Nathan Júnior.

Paços Ferreira

After seven months without club, Nathan signed with Paços Ferreira on 31 January 2019 after a trial. He left the club at the end of the year.

Académico Viseu

On 31 January 2019, Nathan moved to another Portuguese club, Académico Viseu, after being without club since leaving Paços Ferreira in the summer 2019. However, he played only 27 minutes.

FC Samtredia

Nathan then returned to Georgia, where he signed with

FC Samtredia FC Samtredia ( ka, სკ სამტრედია), commonly known as Samtredia, is a Georgian professional football club based in the city of Samtredia. Following the 2024 season, the club was relegated to Erovnuli Liga 2, the 2nd tier of ...

in August 2020.

International career

Nathan Júnior has not represented

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 ...

at any level yet. In an interview for ''sportacentrs.com'' the player admitted that he would be interested in representing

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

, but as the Latvian law does not allow more than one citizenship, Júnior would have to waive the Brazilian passport and play in Latvia for at least five years. The player said that it would be a serious decision, but after moving to Austria this question has been put aside.

Career statistics

Club

Honours

Skonto Riga *

Latvian First League The Latvian First League () is the second tier of football in Latvia and is organised by the Latvian Football Federation. Since 2021, its full name is Nākotnes Līga (''Future League''). History The league was founded together with other Latv ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

Baltic League The Baltic League (officially known as the Triobet Baltic League) was a Baltic men's football club tournament held four times between the top club sides from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Launched in 2007 inspired by the now defunct Scandinavi ...

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

; runner-up

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

Individual * Virsliga top scorer: 2010, 2011

References

External links