Vinicius Souza signing to be made official | OneFootball

VfL Wolfsburg is set to make another summer signing official today: Brazilian defensive midfielder Vinicius Souza, who joins Die Wölfe after two years with Sheffield United FC in the Premier League and EFL Championship.

Souza will be going to the Volkswagen Arena on a € 15 million transfer fee, with the contract lasting until 2030; a medical will be conducted later today.

The 26-year-old Souza has multiple connections to Wolfsburg, one of which is his agent, Naldo. The 42-year-old former Wolfsburg centre-back, also from Brazil, played a crucial part in the club’s 2015 DFB-Pokal title, and scored 16 goals over 125 matches between 2012 and 2016. It should be added that Naldo helped finalise the transfer of Brazilian left-back Rogério from US Sassuolo to Wolfsburg back in 2023.

Souza also knows Peter van der Veen, the new assistant coach at the club, who joined shortly after the hiring of Paul Simonis as head coach. Vinicius Souza and Peter van der Veen were both at Lommel SK in Belgium during the 2020 / 21 season, where the former was involved in eighteen matches.

The signing of Souza comes at a time when Wolfsburg have been evaluating their options at defensive midfield, trying to find someone who can ideally work well or even compete with captain Maximilian Arnold. Last season, the club signed Salih Özcan on loan from Borussia Dortmund, but the club decided not to sign the 27-year-old Turkish international permanently and allowed him to return to BVB.

This is the second first-team signing Wolfsburg have made in the last week; the club also acquired left-back Aaron Zehnter from SC Paderborn for € 4,5 million. Zehnter played forty-seven matches in the 2. Bundesliga since January 2024, scoring four goals.