Meet Felipe Longo, likely to start in goal for Corinthians against Santos | OneFootball

The Corinthians is expected to have a new face in goal for the classic match against Santos next Wednesday, in the 28th round of the Brazilian Championship. This will be Felipe Longo, the club's reserve goalkeeper, who is set to replace the starting goalkeeper Hugo Souza, who will be absent.

Called up by Carlo Ancelotti, Hugo Souza will defend the Brazilian National Team in the friendly against Japan on the 14th, the day before the classic, in Tokyo. Therefore, he will not be able to return in time. Anticipating the situation, the player intentionally received his third yellow card against Mirassol and will serve a suspension against Santos.

As a result, Longo is expected to get his first opportunity in the main team. He has been included in all the games and is seen by Dorival's technical staff as the immediate backup for Hugo at the moment.

Beginning in the youth academy

Felipe Longo's relationship with Corinthians began at the age of eight. Born on March 5, 2005, in São Paulo, the goalkeeper started playing futsal and transitioned to the field at age 11.

The player went through all the youth categories and during this period, lifted the trophies of the Paulista Championship under-13, under-14, under-16, and under-17. Last year, in 2024, he won the main tournament: the Copinha, against Cruzeiro.

Praise from the idol

The goalkeeper was promoted to the main squad right after winning the São Paulo Cup, but had been training among professionals since he was 14. At the time, he even received praise from the idol Cássio.

After a training session with Felipe Longo, the athlete, who now plays for Cruzeiro, said: “These days I trained with a boy from the under-14 and was impressed. He is almost as tall as I am. Corinthians is very well served with goalkeepers, no need to hire, even those from the youth academy are doing well.”

Felipe Longo and Cássio training together for Corinthians (Photo: Rodrigo Coca/Agência Corinthians)

Frequent in the National Team

At 20 years old, the goalkeeper who stands 1.88 m tall has already had four call-ups for the Brazilian under-20 National Team. He has played in nine matches for Brazil.

Longo was called up for the World Cup of the category, which is being held in Chile. Corinthians, however, requested that he be removed from the list, already anticipating a possible absence of Hugo Souza. The National Team was eliminated in the group stage of the World Cup.

Felipe's contract with Corinthians is valid until March 2029.

Other options

Besides Felipe Longo, Dorival has two other options to replace Hugo: Kauê and Matheus Donelli. The latter was the immediate backup but fell out of the technical staff's plans and lost his spot. In fact, he is not even being included in the Corinthians matches anymore.

Kauê, on the other hand, is even older than Longo – he is 21 years old. However, like his colleague, he has never played in a main team match.

Next Corinthians match

Standings situation

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.