Mauro Jaqueson Júnior Ferreira dos Santos, known as Mauro Júnior, is a 27-year-old Brazilian left-back for PSV Eindhoven, born 6 May 1999 in Palmital, São Paulo. 171cm. He's now in his ninth season at PSV, having signed a five-year deal in June 2017 out of Desportivo Brasil's youth setup and taken only one loan spell — a full 2019-20 season at Heracles Almelo (26 apps, 6G, 6A). This report is built entirely from public statistical sources (FotMob, Wikipedia, Transfermarkt) and press coverage — it is not a Tier 3 video-scouted assessment.
The 2025-26 numbers are genuinely strong for the position. 1 goal, 9 assists, 2,086 minutes, 7.72 average FotMob rating, only 2 yellow cards. FotMob's own positional comparison notes he rates highly on both rating and assists relative to Eredivisie left-backs — a real, sourced data point, not an inference. Versatility across his career (deployed at right-back, winger, and defensive midfield at various points per multiple sources) suggests a squad-trusted utility player as much as a specialist.
Tenure and leadership are the defining traits of this profile. 11 major honors at PSV: 4 Eredivisie titles (2017-18, 2023-24, 2024-25, 2025-26), 4 Johan Cruyff Shields, 2 KNVB Cups. He's now vice-captain, on a contract through June 2029, with a Transfermarkt value of €18M and a reported (press, unconfirmed) €12M release clause drawing interest from Porto and Leeds United.
Match-file participation across the supplied set is mixed and worth stating plainly. He did not play in the 23 August 2025 Groningen match — PSV explicitly confirmed him unavailable alongside Veerman and Plea. He appeared as a half-time substitute for Guus Til in the 22 March 2026 defeat at Telstar. He played the full 90 minutes and rated 8.7 in the 11 April 2026 win at Sparta Rotterdam — arguably his best individual match of the run. The fourth file, labeled for RKC Waalwijk, does not correspond to a 2025-26 match at all — RKC Waalwijk were relegated out of the Eredivisie after 2024-25 and PSV have not faced them this season. Research instead identifies this as a 30 October 2018 KNVB Beker (Dutch Cup) tie, a famous upset where PSV lost 2-3 after extra time to a lower-division RKC side, with Mauro Júnior scoring PSV's second goal. It's flagged here as a legitimate but much older file rather than folded silently into the current-season set.
The one real open question is international recognition. Despite nearly a decade of title-winning Eredivisie football, his national-team record stops at a substitute appearance in the 2015 South American U17 Championship final. No senior Brazil involvement has been reported at any point since.
Empire FGA Status Note
Tier 1 data-complete · Tier 2/3 not scored · No final FGA composite. The 9-assist season deserves real scrutiny rather than a headline read: how much reflects individual quality of delivery versus playing in a dominant, chance-rich PSV attack is exactly what Tier 3 video review should isolate. The international gap should also not be quietly smoothed over — it's a real, unresolved data point about his ceiling.
