Matheus Konitz '20 Recruiting Profile

When I was 16, I had an awesome opportunity to leave Brazil and finish high school in Canada. It changed my life completely, from learning a new language to making new friends and becoming a student-athlete.  

As a Brazilian, I played soccer as a goalie for quite a long time in many clubs and schools. But when I moved to Canada my mindset changed, struggled but did my best to learn English while being a grade 11 student, and played many sports such as soccer, indoor soccer, handball, ultimate frisbee, and football.

I was always interested but never had the opportunity to play due to the football culture in Brazil being almost inexistent. So I tried out for my school team in grade 12 and was able to play as a starter Defensive End during the 2019 season when we finished the championship as runner-ups. Also during grade 12, I got accepted at NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute o Technology) at Chemical Engineering Tech, Mechanical Engineering Tech, and Computer Engineering Tech. But unfortunately, I had to leave Canada due to my visa expiration and wasn't able to renew it due to Canadian Borders closed during the Covid-19 pandemic

My family, especially my mom, went through a tough situation and I left my student-athlete career aside and started working at a motorsport team as a mechanic.

Time went by and things got better in 2022, when I found an opportunity to play football again, I tried Coritiba Crocodiles, one of the most traditional and Important teams in Brazil. I made it to the team as a Defensive End, but due to the roster being small I had to double play as a right tackle nose tackle, and long snapper. Besides being an athlete, I also need to work outside the field, selling Crocodiles merch to fans, cutting and painting the grass, and working at the bar when we rent our field to other teams to play in.

I know where I want to be so, I kept working hard every day on my own and made it into the all-state team as a starting defensive end.