Felipe De Souza: Pahang Rangers' Pivot Is the Most Dangerous Player in the MPFL
Sixteen goals in eight games, two goals per match exactly, and two six-goal hauls. On the 2026 numbers, no pivot in the MPFL is harder to stop than Felipe De Souza.
There is a reasonable argument, based purely on what the 2026 match data shows, that Felipe De Souza is the most destructive player in the Malaysia Premier Futsal League this season. Sixteen goals from eight appearances for Pahang Rangers, two goals per game exactly, with two MVP awards and a pair of six-goal hauls that have left opposition defences with no reliable answer.
The Brazilian pivot, who now plays in Malaysia for the fourth consecutive season under Eloy Alonso's management at Pahang Rangers, first arrived in the country in 2017 as a football player with Melaka United in the Liga Super, scoring four goals in nine appearances before switching codes to futsal. He joined Pahang Rangers for 2024, won the top scorer award in that campaign, and has shown no signs of relinquishing it in 2026.
The standout performance of the season came in circuit two's 19-2 rout of Wipers, where De Souza scored six times, in the 5th, 8th, 19th, 27th, 37th and 39th minutes, to claim the MVP award in the most emphatic individual display the season has yet produced. He repeated the feat three days later with a hat-trick in the 7-0 win over Terengganu, earning a second successive MVP award. Six goals across two days of futsal is the kind of output that announces a player in the sharpest form of his career.
His profile is the pivot at its most complete. De Souza's career has taken him through Spanish football with Levante UD and the China Futsal League before Pahang Rangers identified him as the finishing option their system required. He does not merely occupy the pivot position, he exploits it, finding space in tight areas, converting quickly, and contributing consistently whether Pahang are running away with a match or needing a goal from nothing. The single goal in a 3-5 defeat to Selangor in circuit four was as important in its context as any of the six against Wipers.
Pahang Rangers sit second in the table, one defeat behind an unbeaten Selangor side. Coach Eloy Alonso's squad have the firepower to challenge all the way to the end of the season. With De Souza in this form, the Golden Boot is already his to lose.
