In an era where managers like Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta have made left-sided defensive distribution a non-negotiable tactical requirement, defenders that can naturally open up passing angles on the left flank are worth their weight in gold, and Grêmio’s twenty-one-year-old starlet Viery has quietly put together a statistical profile in Brazil that should have elite recruitment departments on high alert.
Player profile
Standing at a commanding 6’1, Viery represents one of the rarest and most highly coveted player
profiles in modern football: a physically imposing, ball-playing, left-footed centre back. He also has the ability to deputise at left-back should the need arise.
Born Viery Fernandes Santos Lopes in Ubá, Minas Gerais, the young defender is a pure product of the Grêmio academy system, joining the club’s youth setup in 2015 as a ten-year-old and steadily progressing through the ranks over a decade before earning a spot in the senior squad.
The statistical breakdown
An in-depth look at Viery’s 2026 performances across the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A and the CONMEBOL Sudamericana reveals a highly specialised modern defender and while he exhibits clear elite technical baselines, his defensive output shows specific areas that need refinement before a move to Europe’s elite leagues.
Viery’s statistical profile is heavily defined by his proactive positioning inside his own penalty area.
In the 2025/2026 campaign, he has racked up an impressive eighty four clearances, highlighting his ability to defend his own area under sustained pressure, which was a staple of the stellar performances from the Sunderland defence across the past season. Viery also ranks in the ninety fifth percentile for defensive contributions; however, this is inflated by Grêmio’s struggles in the league this past season.
When it comes to duels won and aerial duels won, Viery sits much closer to the average ranking — the fifty second and fifty first percentiles respectively.
This, however, isn’t uncommon for a young centre back, given this was his first season in senior football and in a struggling side. Compared to the likes of Dan Ballard and Omar Alderete, who both won between 65% and 68% of their aerial duels in the last campaign, it shows that Viery has some development in this area.
Fans should also take comfort in the fact that Régis Le Bris is a highly established youth coach (counting the likes of Junior Kroupi and Dango Outtara as former players), so any development issues would likely be addressed, particularly with the likes of Nordi Mukiele, Ballard and Alderete to look up to and learn from.
The final developmental hurdle would be that Viery’s profile highlights him as a ‘reactive’ defender and whilst excelling at ‘last ditch’ defending, he ranks lower in the proactive defending metrics that Mukiele excels in — highlighted by the fact he only registered eight interceptions during 2025/2026.
However, the most appealing metric for European scouts is Viery’s distribution.
Operating as a left-footed centre back, he maintains a steady 85.0% pass completion rate, placing him in the eighty fourth percentile for passes completed and in the sixty second percentile for the accuracy of these passes.
This highlights his capacity for seeing a pass into a more creative midfield player and recycling the ball quickly.
The Verdict
Viery shouldn’t be viewed as an immediate replacement for a seasoned top flight starter, but rather as a “high-upside” project. He matches Alderete’s profile as a left-footed distributor but brings a much higher ceiling at just twenty one years old.
For a Sunderland team preparing for the added fixture congestion of a Europa League campaign, he offers the ideal blend of progressive passing and elite physical traits to rotate into Le Bris’s backline.
One for the future? Yes, absolutely. Viery does, however, offer an immediate option to strengthen the left side of the Sunderland defence behind the Paraguayan wall of Alderete.
