Petrus’ game: “The main important thing, that I say to everybody, is you must want to defend”

“Since I was kid, I always try and enter the teams through the defence, because not many guys want to play defence and for me, I just want to play. Doesn't matter where. I want to play,” says Thiagus Petrus when asked how he became a specialist defender — a position that earnt him a place in the Team of the Season at the first EHF Excellence Awards, for 2022/23. 

“The day I realised, and some older guys told me, you can be a good defender, so you should focus on it. And all the teams that I have been till Szeged, I started to play a lot of minutes in defence and then after that I started playing attack also.”

With One Veszprém HC since the start of the 2025/26 season, Petrus first came to Europe from his native Brazil to join La Rioja. Next he spent three years at Szeged then seven with Barça, winning three EHF Champions League titles with the latter. It was then Szeged coach Juan Carlos Pastor who suggested Petrus concentrate on defence, as it was an area lacking for the club at that time. Then coach Xavi Pascual brought Petrus to Barça as a specialist defender — and now he has done the same at Veszprém.  

“In Veszprém, I come not as a young player anymore. And I come to perform as much as I can,” says Petrus of the move. “This year, we are eight, nine new guys in the team and we need a lot of time to work and to improve, but my way to look at it is just come here to play and to help the defence to improve and try to win as many games as possible.”

“They are just fighters. They are warriors”

Petrus is not the only player Pascual has brought to Veszprém from his previous teams. The squad includes Luka Cindric and Ali Zein, both of whom played under Pascual at Barça and Dinamo. Zein is also an important defensive player, making it clear Pascual had a vision of the direction in which the team needed to move and that working with players he already knows would help accomplish that. 

“I talked directly to Pasqui and he explained me about the project. He said to me, also Ali’s coming here, and with Dragan [Pechmalbec] and [Patrik] Ligetvári, the four of us can be the middle of defence. The good thing is that we have different characteristics, so each one of us can make different things and that's a lot for the coach. You can manage that with the different teams we play against,” says Petrus.  

“With Ali, I spoke before coming to Veszprém. We were really excited to play together again, because also we had one great year back in time in Spain. And also, in the important games, we did play together in the middle. So we played one year and have been separate for three years, but now, it looks like we still know each other. This good feeling we had before, we still have it.

“Also Dragan and Ligetvári, they are just fighters. They are warriors and it's kind of easy to play with them.” 

Petrus eludes to the fact the four key defenders at Veszprém have different characteristics. So what, in Pascual’s eyes, are Petrus’ most important characteristics? What drove the legendary Spanish coach to want him at Veszprém as they target a long-awaited EHF Champions League trophy? 

“The most important for me is this tactical part — to try to know what the opponents’ attack is going to do and try to take one step ahead to help the defence to work. Like, I have been a lot of years with many Spanish coaches and they all care about this tactical — where you should stay, how you should defend. And I think for the team, it's what they need most from me — to think a little bit about the tactics and to help in the court, because the coach cannot help. He can help through outside, but at the court, it's just the players. Then I think it's the most important to me — to help the others and to try to be one step ahead to the attack.”

“The most important — to try to be as fast as possible in the defence”

That is the coach view according to Petrus. When it comes to his own opinion of his strengths, the most important thing is quite simple: How much he wants to stop every attack he can. 

“The main important thing, that I say to everybody, is you must want to defend,” says Petrus. “You have to want it like, too much, to become a good defender. That's the main part. And then you have to work — working for me, like all the mobility and to watch games and try to develop the individual skills. Sometimes I do a lot of mistakes. I know. And sometimes I kind of have to do these mistakes, but with the mobility that I have, I can fix it later. Because for me, it's the most important — to try to be as fast as possible in the defence and to help the players also with this. The first, to want to defend. And then second, to have this big mobility — for me, it's the key things to become a good defender.

“And also there is the tactical part — to read the game, to study the players, to know what they usually do, what they want to do. And also, we have great players now, all the time. Even if they win or score against you, at least for you to know why they score — they score because they are good, of course. But you know that you can try to prevent the next time they can score, but not in the same way, you know — also to don't have the same mistake twice.” 

Petrus mentions video analysis as key for him, and says it is not something he limits to only the dedicated analysis sessions with the team. 

“First of all, I like handball — I like to watch the games,” says Petrus. “Then you have been playing against the same players many years, many times, so you already know the players and still you have to watch them, to try to find some ways, some evidence, what they think in which moment. When the game is so stressful, so even, about the big pressure, what do they do? And when they have confidence, they do that. 

“I try to watch it and analyse the individual players and then analyse the team. Then try to think, if they play against me, how do they attack me? To try to create some strategies to became better and better; to try to be that one step ahead.”

“Think as an individual and then you have to think as a group”

As Petrus says, it is impossible to stop every goal from being scored. The most the defence can do is their best to prevent the same kind of goal from being scored twice — to keep the attack working hard to find the goal. Every moment in defence requires a choice, and there is always a risk a defender can make the wrong one. 

“You have to try to read it from before, because there are some players also you cannot defend one-against-one, and then you need help. So, you have to try to take this risk in the right moment. Sometimes, they come just too fast and you don't have time to react, so it's better to choose one side or the other side. As I say, make 50:50, and if they go to the other side, OK. If they go to you, it could be an attack foul,” says Petrus. 

“For me, I try to take this calculated risk, to let them do what I want them to do, not what they want. But OK, if they fake me, it should be to one side — the side that I want to, not the side that I don't want. And then it depends which players are in the game, which players the goalkeeper wants more to shoot than the others, so it's kind of the strategy from each game.

“I think as an individual and then you have to think as a group, and also I talk a lot to the goalkeepers, for which is the best situation for them to have a higher efficiency in the saves."

2025/26 marks Petrus’ 13th season playing the EHF Champions League, although his career before Europe dates several years before that, starting at EC Pinheiros. He has also been a stalwart in the Brazil national team since 2010. With such longevity and from his position on the defensive line, Petrus has seen the development of the game into what he terms “fast handball” from the front row. 

“I've been playing here in Europe and Champions League for many years now and it's nice to see how the handball is changing,” says Petrus. “The scores, they are really high now. Before it was 20 to 25, and now, most of the games there are more than 30 goals each team. So, it's fast handball and you have to develop other skills to be that. And also, for the key positions, as the pivot, before they were really big and now they are so fast. They are not that big guys — skinny and they can be in the middle. They run a lot, so it became really interesting for me, to still play that level and to see how it changed a lot. 

“I have also to change my characteristics. I have to improve in some aspects, but in the end I think that I just became better to play against these fast players, this fast handball, and I really like that because it’s making the games more interesting, at least. It's not just stopping all the time. The players just run, run, run. That makes the handball more attractive.”

“The one who gives you victory, who gives you a lot of energy”

Coming back to the start of Petrus’ career and who inspired him early on, Brazil is at the fore, with Petrus naming two players that stood out as role models for him: Bruno Souza and Maik Santos.

“When I was young, we always look for Bruno Souza, because he was the biggest star back in time from Brazil. The one who became really big in that time,” says Petrus, before commenting on Santos. “He was in national team for I don't know, 15 years, maybe more. 

“Bruno, he was playing the Bundesliga. He was playing in Hamburg and he was where everybody in Brazil wants to be — in the big clubs. And Maik was the big one in the national team — the one who gives you victory, who gives you a lot of energy. So for me, these two guys, they were like my role models. But then I was really lucky because I played with a lot of older guys who helped me a lot to grow up in different ways, but I think these two, in my childhood, they were the biggest ones for me.” 


photos: Roland Peka (main); Uros Hocevar, Jure Erzen, Anze Malovrh, Saša Pahič Szabó / kolektiff